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I think you should talk about Coco.
Why?
To remember him. To record him. To honor his memory. And to help you work through your trauma.
Sure… Okay. I will try.

Back when I was still in community college, my brother and his girlfriend at the time decided to buy two rabbits. They were told by the petstore staff that both rabbits were female, which wasn’t true. Coco, a mostly white rabbit with brown patches, was a male a rabbit. And he became my brother’s rabbit.

Except my brother never took care of Coco. Never spent time with him. Never cared when Coco and the other rabbit made a litter. And he didn’t care about making sure the litter of baby bunnies found a home either. My grandparents wanted me to take care of finding homes for the rabbit. And I didn’t want to take care of finding homes for them because it was my brother’s responsibility. Coco was supposed to be his responsibility.

But my brother never took care of the litter. So, one day, my grandparents had enough of their garden being eaten. They placed the baby bunnies in a box, and released them into a nearby field known for having hawks nearby. I know my grandparents were at their wits’ end, but the cruelty of what they did isn’t lost on me.

I don’t know how long Coco lived. I think a year? Maybe two? He could have – should have – lived longer. No one really cared if Coco had a healthy diet, aside from me. I tried to make sure he had hay instead of straight greens and bread. My grandma in particular loved feeding Coco bread because it made him happy. Bread is junk food for rabbits.

Several times over and over I told my grandma to stop feeding him bread. It wasn’t healthy for him, and it was starting to show on Coco’s plump figure. But she would dismiss me, saying about how she knew better. She’d continue to feed him.

One day, we all noticed my rabbit wasn’t doing well. I looked up Coco’s symptoms and it was very likely his intestinal tract stopped moving. So all of the food he was eating sat in his intestines, rotting and making him septic.
My grandfather tried to pick up Coco and my rabbit screamed. I’ll never forget that scream. That night I went to my brother’s room and knocked on his door. I practically begged him to do something, take Coco to the vet or something. Yet my brother dismissed me too. I remember him just sitting in his computer chair, staring at the screen.

The next day was the last of my midterms. World Literature. Before I left though, my family stopped me and said Coco wasn’t moving. I couldn’t look and asked my boyfriend to check on Coco for me. And he said my rabbit was gone…

I remember collapsing against the doorframe, sobbing. My grandpa yelled in surprised, “Why are you crying, it’s just an animal!”

Somehow I got to my midterms… I remember standing outside the classroom with my eyes red and puffy. I think I got a B on my midterms. I went home, hoping to bury my rabbit in the backyard he loved. Except, while I was gone my family took his body and threw him into the dump.

I cannot begin to describe the amount of rage and despair I felt. And still feel to this day.

Coco was not the first animal my family neglected. My brother is easily swayed by his friends, and whatever trends his friends are into he needs to get into them too. So when his friends got into exotic, large fish, he needed to get them too. My brother got a 100 gallon tank, and four fish the size of my hand.

My brother quickly got bored of them. My grandparents and my dad ended up taking care of the fish. Feeding them, changing the water, and when the fish started to die one by one, my family took care of that event too.

Once, my dad came home from Los Angeles. In the little hermit cases he had two baby red eared sliders, turtles. They were the size of two quarters, so they fit easily into the container. I looked them up and realized the turtles would quickly outgrow their enclosure. I pestered my family about the turtles needing a proper set up, and eventually the turtles got something better.

It wasn’t ideal, but it was better than being cooped up in a plastic cage.
And then my grandparents decided to make them an outdoor enclosure. One day one of the turtles couldn’t be found. My grandmother told me she found a turtle shell, picked clean. A possum had come and ate one of the turtles. At least now the remaining turtle has a cage over his too small enclosure.
I refer to the family house as the House of Death because whenever an animal gets taken in, they will almost surely suffer and/or die.