I have worked with live rabbits and doves in my show for about thirty-five years now.  Yesterday, I found my latest rabbit dead after serving faithfully for eight years.  Of all the rabbits I've had over the years this one was far and away my favorite, and just as much a pet as a working rabbit.

Eight years ago, when the previous rabbit, Jeremiah, died, my wife, Sue, said she passed a farm every day that had a sign out saying it had rabbits for sale.  She offered to stop in the next day on her way home.  When she did, she discovered that the owner was a former student from her adult education program.  This former student was so grateful for my wife's work with her, she gave us a beautiful, white dwarf male Dutch lop.  The lop was a two year old that was recently retired from breeding.  That same day, she brought the little guy home.  We decided on the name Cotton because of his pure white, fluffy fur.  But I also had in mind one of my favorite literary characters, Johnny Cotton from the book "Bless the Beasts and Children".  I had read this coming of age novel countless times over the years, but had just finished reading it aloud to our youngest daughter, Rose, when we were both home form school sick.  Johnny Cotton, the savior character in the novel, made for a nice double meaning to our new bunny's name.

Cotton adjusted quickly to his role change from stud to magician's partner.  Over the eight years he performed in our show, he did hundreds of shows in multiple states and Canada.  After almost every show, he visited the audience face to face and hands on.  Whether he was interacting with  a Sunday school kid or a prison inmate; a psychiatric patient or a great-grandmother in a nursing home; he was equally gentle, affectionate and non-judgemental.  I often joked that he was the real star of the show.  

Sometime during those eight years, I got a harness and leash so I could take Cotton out in the yard.  He loved it!  He would, like rabbits do, sprint for a few seconds, then stop to nibble moss, grass, wild strawberry leaves, dandilions and whatever else he could find.  Other times he found sticks from our apple trees to chew on.  As he got older, he still enjoyed the yard, but did a lot less sprinting and a lot more laying in the grass.  I told Sue once that I liked our time in the yard because our daughters were all adults, but with Cotton, there was still someone to play in the yard with.  

In the last year or so, he developed an eye infection that didn't ever fully go away.  Recently, it got worse, and he was losing a lot of fur around the affected eye.  Yet he still worked wonderfully  in every show (as recently as five days before he passed) and was as gentle and tender as ever.  On his last day, he came into school where I teach, and rehearsed with my class for an upcoming show.  In fact, he was part of my students' shows over the past eight years as well. Although he will not get to perform with this year's team.

Fittingly, Cotton died when the music teacher was in the class room teaching the students about George Hndel.  The last thing he heard with his long, lop ears was Handel’s “Messiah”.