A student runs toward me as I carry a bowl of lettuce, peppers, and baby carrots to the rabbit hutch. “I want to help!” he yells, zooming to my side. He is four and in the early care program, and I know him because he loves animals just as much as I do. I let him make two small bowls of salad for the rabbits.
I lift the top of the hutch to remove the old food cups, and beneath one is the lifeless body of a newborn bunny. Instinctually, I cover the tiny corpse, bend to accept the child’s salad, and call out to the early care children that they are taking a surprise trip to the playground.
When the room is quiet, I lift the kit carefully with a towel and hold it in my hand. It is still pink. Its eyes are closed. It is all at once life and death. It is impossible to know where one stopped and the other began. The world is airless for a moment. I feel nothing, and then deep sadness that burns through my chest.
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object of memory 