a taste for tenderness
day 11 : 100 days
I almost named her Hunter. I had a list of a hundred names, if I’m being honest. Then the following week, when a hawk followed me around on my walk, I was sure I would name her after some sort of bird of prey: Falcon, perhaps. This would have been a mistake on many levels, of course, but when you’re pregnant, the hormones take you for a ride. The only taste Esme has for blood comes from her bleeding heart, and in her mouth, there is only a taste for tenderness.
When Esme got home last night, she was full of restless energy. Her second rained-out bike camp day this time meant the teachers kept the kids inside. But now the rain had stopped, and so I said yes when she asked if she could take her bike around the neighborhood. I cleaned up the dinner dishes and ran myself a bath. I was just relaxing into the temperature when I heard a knock on the door. “You can come in”, I said, “it’s unlocked”. But she stayed on the other side of the door. “Mommy”….she said quietly as if she was pressing her mouth to the crack in the door….” Mommy. I found a rabbit. It’s a dead rabbit”….a long pause….” Can we have a funeral?” I took a deep heavy breath and was immediately surprised by information remembered from a conversation with my sister last year, about rabbits and bacterial infections. But I took another breath and heard myself say, “Yes…just don’t touch it. I’ll be right there.”
When I walked out of the bath to go find clothes, I almost ran into her. She was standing in the hallway in her green dress, ready and waiting. Hunter green. We had bought it years ago when she went through a gown phase. It was during the pandemic, and she had insisted on Fancy Fridays, where we all had to dress up for dinner. She needed me to zip it up, but it wouldn’t go all the way. She had outgrown it finally - “It will still work”, I said, “you don’t need it to be fully zipped.” “Thanks,” she said, “I want to look nice, it deserves something pretty.”
When I went to find the shovel in the garage, I felt disoriented and nervous, wondering at how things change so quickly, one minute you’re in a warm bath and the next you’re officiating a rabbit funeral. I found myself praying there wouldn’t be a lot of blood. I wasn’t sure what kind of shape the poor thing was in. But when I met Esme behind our house, I caught my breath. She had put flowers on it from our garden, and it was beautiful. For a moment, I thought maybe it wasn’t really dead, it looked too perfect, and I checked it for movement, but nothing; it was gone.
We decided that the flower bed would be the best place. The dirt is soft there, so we could dig nice and deep. Also, the flowers are blooming, and it seemed fitting for such a beautiful little creature. Esme had very large, clear tears falling down her cheeks, but her face was quiet; she was quiet and a little too grown up for a ten-year-old…a little too grown up for my liking. We said a few words, and Esme said softly into my neck, “I think her name should be Jane.”
Later, I was quiet too. I went for a walk, and the birds’ singing seemed louder, clearer, sweeter than usual. And I suppose, thinking of death makes you feel very much alive. I thought of the rabbit, how it must have leaped through the grass, and I felt my feet moving and my arms swinging, and I looked up, grateful to be hearing birds at all. When I got home, Esme was in the bath and she called for me to. “Come look, Momma.” And when peeked around the curtain, there she was, completely covered in bubbles six inches high, with a bubble beard on her face. “I have a beard!” she grinned. “Will you go get my swim goggles?” She’s still a ten-year-old, thank God, I thought. And as I sat with Christopher, listening to the sound of her blowing loud, gurgling bubbles, imagining her goggles on her face, and her soapy beard, I thought, “Nope, definitely not a hunter, this one.” Esme means beloved, greatly loved, and dear to the heart. I picked a good name for this one.
I love Esme’s mix of adventurousness and tenderness. Her sensitivity doesn’t keep her from exploring, I love that. She’s like a walking poem. Fancy Fridays! What a good idea.
I love this sweet and tender story. My daughter named all three of her hamsters Jane. A good name for a rabbit too.