---

An Indomitable Spirit

"Don’t worry, be happy"

By Sandy McFall

Sometime in the Spring of 2005 people living in a run-down trailer park in Greeley obtained a large "free" rabbit from a garage sale. After a couple weeks they decided they did not want the rabbit, so they bound his hind legs with baling wire and tied him to a tree in an unfenced front yard barren of grass, food, or water. While bound to the tree the bunny was attacked by predators. He was skin and bones, wounded, and so dehydrated he appeared blind because his eyes were so sunken into their sockets.

When a Greeley Animal Control officer found the bunny his condition was critical. Barely alive, he was rushed to bunny intensive care, where he remained on an IV for three days. Given little chance for survival, the bunny’s warrior spirit defied the odds. He had a fierce desire to live.

The Greeley Animal Control officer was a friend of Otto and Carolyn Hubbard. Knowing the Hubbard’s love for bunnies, the officer told them the survivor’s story. Word got to Nancy, and soon the bunny was taken into the loving fold of CO-HRS.

Appropriately named Spirit, the beautiful Flemish Giant mix instantly won the hearts of everyone in Broomfield. His gentle, loving aura was intoxicating and irresistible. How could one survive such trauma and exude this other-worldly gentle love and forgiveness? Otto Hubbard had the answer: Spirit was a one-in-a-million-bun.

Under Nancy’s loving care, Spirit was soon ready for a partner and a forever home. While volunteering in Broomfield I too fell in love with Spirit’s quiet strength. The previous November my mini-lop Josie, plucked from bunny death row due to failing Boulder Humane’s "temperament" test, came to live with me in the mountains. She was a fearful rabbit who would have nothing of being paired with my two gentle Dutch Dwarfs Honey and Oreo. In fact, Josie’s propensity to scream and run at the sight of another rabbit turned mild-mannered Oreo into Bunnicula! Oreo would bare her teeth and sink them into Josie’s behind, which made Josie all the more hysterical.

While my little histrionic drama queen was perfectly content to partner with me and live alone in the office, that wasn’t okay with me or Nancy, so back to Broomfield we went in search of a perfect partner. Spirit, zen-like and composed, seemed the perfect match. We put them together, Josie screamed and ran. Spirit meditated. Josie hopped around like a crazy woman. Spirit closed his eyes and radiated peace. Josie cringed, then lunged at me. She was furious. How could I do this to her? Spirit only smiled secretly, eyes closed, remaining the perfect gentleman as I imagined him humming "Don’t worry, be happy".

Thus began the the first of Spirit’s many healing missions. When he and Josie came home, she stayed as far away from him as she could get (the length of the room … 25 feet) for a good two weeks. Radiating love and calm, he waited for her to come to him, which she finally did, and thus our little trauma survivor was healed of her fear of rabbits.

Shortly after this happy joining I was able to snap the shot of Spirit sleeping while spooning Josie, arm thrown across her, like blissful newlyweds. This photo graced the cover of the 2006 CO-HRS calendar.

Spirit settled happily into the routine in the mountains, spending time in the lush green grass of the bunny yard, digging giant-sized holes in the digger box, and welcoming new rescues into the Satellite.

While there, Josie and Spirit shared the office with Tristan and Bambi, living side by side. Tristan was the only being Spirit ever seemed to take issue with, much to Tristan’s disadvantage: our poor little Tristan looked like an old gladiator, missing the ends of both ears, scarred, and never willing to just leave Spirit alone. Maybe Tristan’s lesson was acceptance that someone else was Top Bunny!

The year after Spirit came home my life unraveled and we had to leave the mountains. The divorce, move, establishment in a new home, and ramping-up of the Satellite was all horrifically stressful. My zen-boy was there with me all the way, calm, loving, radiating peace and generosity, ever humming, "Don’t worry, be happy." I do declare, I took some comfort there.

Spirit became integrally involved in the operations of the Satellite. He often took Josie and me to PetSmart to demonstrate how wonderful house rabbits can be. The public always loved him, but then, he had that effect on everyone. When new rescues arrived, I would park them next to Spirit and Josie so the tranquilizing calm perpetually radiating from Spirit would help the frightened and bewildered newcomers. It always worked, as though they could hear him humming, "Don’t worry, be happy."

When we had to leave our beautiful home in the city and move to the county to continue to operate the bunny rescue, Spirit was there, ever offering support, comforting us all, praising the new space, binkying under the giant backyard trees. "See, this is better!" he would say, and we would all have to agree. It was true. When we had the bunny barn grand opening Spirit was the star of the show, happily showing off his new facility, radiating all that peace and joy.

In early 2009 Spirit began to have trouble chewing. Exams and x-rays showed nothing, and the problem seemed to resolve, only to reoccur as a mass under his chin. Further x-rays were indeterminate, in the summer we were able to express the mass without surgery, and with aggressive antibiotics he again seemed to get well. Unfortunately, as so often happens with stubborn abscesses in rabbits, his infection reappeared, this time manifesting first as a blocked tear duct, which upon further examination, proved to be infection filling the hollow in the skull under the eye.

In the fall, after topical treatments and antibiotics, Spirit went in for surgery. He had a rear tooth removed and the infection cleaned out to the best of the vet’s ability. Spirit and Josie then spent the next two weeks in the home of Dr. Paul Bingham and his wife Cindy, getting round-the-clock care. Of course Dr. Bingham and Cindy fell completely in love with both rabbits. They marveled at Spirit’s will to live and gentle, loving energy. My boy and his girl were home in time for Thanksgiving.

Spirit did well for a couple months, then a large lump reappeared under his eye, and Dr. Bingham elected to do a second surgery in February. He found an encased pocket which cleaned out easily, and unlike the previous surgery, Spirit and Josie came home the next day. The doctor was quite optimistic about a full recovery this time, which is why we could not believe what came next.

Two days later, on the sunny winter morning of February 19, 2010 I could see Spirit was feeling poorly. I took him outside to enjoy his yard with Josie while I cleaned his run, and as I picked him up to take him back inside, his great, liquid eyes looked into mine and said, "Don’t worry, be happy. I’ll be fine. Take care of Josie, I love you." And with that, I could feel him sliding away like the tide. I laid him down next to Josie, and with my hand on his side, our precious boy skipped over the Rainbow Bridge.

When asked once what about rabbits is so special, Otto Hubbard replied, "They are the furthest thing from evil I’ve ever had the pleasure to be around." Spirit was an example of what is good and gentle and forgiving and soft and warm in an otherwise cruel world. He touched the hearts of all he met, he provided healing for the broken, he was a comfort for those who hurt. When he hurt, he bore ministrations with dignity and patience. Most of all, he never bore a grudge, instead he lived out his mantra, "Don’t worry, be happy".

Death is hardest on the living. After we cried a river and buried Spirit in an honored place in our bunny cemetery, keeping his spirit close, I decided to introduce his widow Josie to our group of widows and widowers, hoping she would find comfort there. Abby, who lost Finnegan in November, Joey, who lost Bambi and Snow in November, Mortimer, who lost Fiona in May, and now Josie, have found love and consolation in the company of each other. And thus, even from the Rainbow Bridge, Spirit provides joy and comfort to the living, as Josie lends her loving energy to the group.

Spirit was a one-in-a-million bunn. We will never forget him.