Sunday morning threw us all for a horrible wretched sucker punch bright and early. Noah went out to feed the bunnies and came upon our poor Molly dead from an apparent raccoon attack. You just can't even imagine the shock and tears and grief that ensued. There was hard crying, loud wailing, blank staring, and quiet crying. Poor Noah and Anna. It makes my eyes water up all over again to have to type it out. Pic is from the night before while the girls were getting ready for the dance.
The one good thing was that Noah saw the raccoon climbing the tree to get away when he came upon the scene so we knew just who the culprit was. It took us only a short time to figure out some other details ... figuring that joker was only in the bunny area trying to get to their food (we found its pawprints on the container), finding drops of blood below the hutch door makes us believe it chased Molly into the hutch and dragged her out. We have to believe the raccoon wasn't hunting our bunnies but that it was just an unfortunate encounter that Molly came out while the raccoon was around. They are vicious and will attack competition for food. I cannot even tell you how sick it makes me feel that this was so avoidable - if we hadn't kept their food outside near their hutch, if we had only made the openings into the hutch smaller then the raccoon wouldn't have been able to get a hold of Molly. Needless to say, we have rectified these set-up issues and THEN some. The bunnies now have several places that they can escape to that will FULLY protect them from a critter like that again - the hutch and a newly enclosed under-treehouse space that can only be gotten into via bunny-sized tunnels.
As for that raccoon, we kept the evil thing treed all morning and after an eventual run to Wal-Mart for an airsoft pellet gun, Josh was able to shoot it out of the tree - thereby giving the kids some peace of mind in the midst of their broken-hearted grief. Anna whacked it on the head with a shovel for good measure.
The rest of Sunday was a blur. We powered through the Super Bowl plans we coulnd't bail on with our Community Group. Anna couldn't sleep much that night - I found her up and upset at 11 and again at 2. I finally cried a little myself when my head hit the pillow. The whole thing is just so jarring! We couldn't focus on school stuff Monday, so we called that off. I posted an SOS on Facebook asking for prayer for the kids for comfort. And man-oh-man did the prayer coverage come rushing in. I am so grateful for all the friends sharing our sadness - it really does lessen it somehow. It meant a lot to the kids that day as they did what they needed to do to grieve some more - both just letting the tears keep coming, all of us talking about it some more - acknowledging to each other how much it hurts, watching videos of Molly, Anna writing poems and working on Molly's grave, and Noah pouring his energy into improvements in the bunny bin. By Tuesday, the kids felt so much steadier in heart and not overcome by tears at any given moment. Wednesday and Thursday even more so.
But we keep on lamenting more quietly ... someone usually saying out of nowhere as we stare out the back window, "I miss Molly." Or when we enjoy Jenny or Padme, it's followed again by a sad sigh, "Poor Molly," or "It's just not fair." Or, if I'm being honest, my own sadness comes out in cuss words about the raccoon. I hate that a stupid accident has hurt our Molly and my kids so much.
I think her loss is gonna ache for awhile, which is fair. Our poor Molly.
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