My rabbit is dead.

And I swear the first one who laughs can fucking well piss off and get defriended immediately. If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

My mother called me on Sunday and told me that she was considering putting him to sleep. He's been having cancer for more than a year, and the tumor on his side kept growing. Despite the fact that it looked ghastly, it hadn't seemed to bother him much until recently. My mother told me that he'd all but stopped eating, had lost almost a kilogram in weight, and had screamed with pain the last time he'd attempted to get up after having lain down on his wrong side.

Rabbits usually don't make any sounds save the contented gnashing of their teeth when you've found just the perfect spot while petting them.

I told her she was right to make the choice she was contemplating. Neither of us ever wanted him to suffer.

On Monday, I called her to tell her that I wanted to be there as well, so she arranged a date with our vet for today. I took a day off work, drove to my parents, and for the remaining three hours joined my mother in petting him and feeding him his favorite cookies. Then I accompanied her when she took him to the vet.

After the injection of a powerful narcotic it took him less than four minutes to die.

We took him home with us. My father thankfully kept his mouth shut (he doesn't like animals and is the reason we won't be getting another rabbit after this - our third - one). We buried him in the garden.

Then my mother went to work and I drove back home to W.

I'm still numb, and no, this isn't funny. I know he wasn't human, but we had him for eight years, and that's a lot of memories. I'm just glad that I'm not the one who'll have to clean his cage and put all his things in the attic. I can still pretend that I'll see him again the next time I go see my parents. My mother can't, plus she won't get any sympathy from my father. I still have my cat. She doesn't.