Please excuse lack of defined paragraphs, I copy/pasted! lol
My Minion, My Medicine.
It was December 2010, and we were homeless yet again. My fourteen month old son and I were being asked to leave the women's shelter because my ex-boyfriend's new wife was working there. And for no reason; beyond my having a relationship with her husband before she'd even met him and our having a child together, she was out to get me. I was a single mom, with no job, no license, no education, no prospects. I was stuck. Thankfully, my eldest sister offered us a place to stay while we tried to get back on our feet. The alternative was to go to the ânearestâ shelter, which was over an hour away from everyone I knew.
When we had moved in with my sister, she had a small menagerie of critters, from little rabbits, to her St. Bernard, all the way up to a pony: Zackary was in seventh heaven! She had a lionhead rabbit who was aptly named âMuppetâ because she looked like a creature out of Jim Henson's mind. There was also a family of Dutch rabbits. I made it my personal job to feed, water, and clean up after them. I particularly enjoyed snuggling on the couch with the babies while Hurricane Zackary terrorized every creature unfortunate enough to cross his path. Somehow, the little Dutch family became known as my âminionsâ, and with them I was going to RULE THE WORLD! As long as I continued to buy their loyalties with lots and lots of carrots.
As it goes with all offspring, the kittens (baby rabbits) grew bigger, became weaned, and were ready to look for new homes and families. By then, I could easily identify each of the bunnies by their markings, faces, and personalities. Most of the litter was un-showable due to being mis-marked, but one of them in particular stole my heart. His saddle was crooked, and his color was off, his little cotton fluff of a tail was white where it was supposed to be tan. His largest âflawâ was his right eye, which was a beautiful pale blue. He was my favorite minion of all of them. I didn't care that he'd never grace a show table, or that he wouldn't really be able to sire litters of his own... I don't know when or even why I decided to buy this breeder misfit, but I sure did. I must've been crazy at the time... as a matter of fact, I think I'm still crazy. But I will tell you; after years of counseling and numerous medications, that was the best $25 I have ever spent! The name Minion simply stuck.
I had been in counseling since I was fourteen for severe depression and anxiety stemming from a lifetime of physical and emotional abuse. I suffered from suicidal thoughts for the majority of it, especially while I was dealing with the abuse from Zack's biological father. My doctors tried a veritable avalanche of medications, at first trying to treat my ADHD (which caused my anxiety to worsen), then trying many different anti-depressants, that only served to make the depression unbearable. Since twenty-one, I've had Zack to keep me going through the worst of it, but I still had the emotional scars that I couldn't seem to get rid of. I needed to do something to fix this, preferably before my son was old enough to think of me as being sad all the time.
My sister helped me get my driver's license, and my GED, which was a big step from the limitations that I'd set on myself. Sometimes, when you live your life in a cage, you get scared when someone finally opens the door for you. Taking these steps towards independence scared the daylights out of me! But I knew I had to do it, if not for myself, then for Zack. I was plagued by panic attacks, and at the time, I had no hobbies to blow off steam, or work off the stress. And while I was desperate to talk to someone about it all, I absolutely couldn't burden my son with all of my problems. I try to keep my thoughts on the topic of his father and his step-mom to myself; I want Zackary to grow up and make up his own mind on how he feels about his father...
I know this only cements my earlier opinion that I'm possibly insane; but I started talking to the rabbit. It never mattered that Minion had nothing to say, no thoughts or advice as to the ever elusive meaning of life, or a solution to my personal dilemma; all that mattered was that he listened. He didn't judge me, and didn't try to fix me, and that made it easier to tell him my troubles. Cuddled on the couch with this little critter and rambling on about my life story really put everything into perspective. With the help of that âinsignificantâ life; the pieces all clicked into place to help me patch over the damage and move on with my life. Most importantly, Minion opened my heart up to the possibility of loving another living thing besides just Zackary. Too many single moms rely too heavily on their children to provide their happiness, and that would be fantastic, if I never wanted my son to grow up and have a life of his own. So I started being happy with myself. No sooner had I decided that I was fine on my own, Mikel came crashing back into my life. I'm still fine on my own, but now I have someone else to share my life with. He's a father to Zack, he loved Minion and the other bunnies for helping repair the previous damage. Because of Minion giving me the confidence to love, I was able to love Mike.
Last February I ended up moving into a hotel room to get out of a detrimental situation with another family member, and I spent about 2 months suffering panic attacks on a weekly basis, almost constantly suicidal, sick from medications, depressed to the point that it was difficult to even get out of bed. I missed classes, didn't talk to anyone but Mike, and even then we fought constantly and our relationship was in serious trouble. Mike talked to the hotel manager, and we made the decision to bring Minion to stay with us in the hotel. It was almost instant improvement. Things weren't perfect, but they were heading to more stable ground. The panic attacks stopped almost completely, the depression was still there, but not as crippling. And all because of a bunny. He saved my life.
Unfortunately, Minion passed away Saturday, September 8, 2012, under tragic and mysterious circumstances. Something knocked in the roof of the run he shared with his companion, and while she stayed in the pen, Minion ran up the collapsed wire and escaped. My 8 year old niece and 11 year old nephew found him laying in a pocket in the ground by the eaves drain of the pole barn, not a mark on him to say how he passed. Minion was carefully and lovingly wrapped in my favorite pillowcase, and my dad picked him up to be interred in his yard close to my childhood dog Belle. I'm heartbroken, but his legacy lives on in my life. It's fueling my decision to raise and train rabbits as ESA's and certified therapy visitors for nursing homes, hospitals, and others with crippling emotional disorders. Because after all, everyone deserves a Minion!
inkbouce:
