Fran began sleeping in my bed at about a year old. At that time, she was still just a little puppy, not the prodigious mastiff that she grew to be. It was in my bed, that she met Kevin the Rabbit. Kevin, a purple, slightly tattered stuffed toy became Fran’s new best friend. Where Fran went, Kevin was pulled along, when Kevin went in the wash, Fran watched his pilly body spin, with trepidation in her eyes. When would he come back? When would the rinse cycle end? As Fran grew, and began to take over the bed, Kevin frequently would go missing in the layers of blankets and sheets, but each morning with a wag of her tail, she tugged him out and licked his face until his once-fluffy left ear began to look like a blanched carrot; white and smooth, not a piece of fur left.
It seemed like Kevin had conjured a spell upon Fran. I am sure that in the small brain in Fran’s head, she thought that she and Kevin were one, as if she could not fathom a world without her friend. She took him every morning as we left the house for our morning walk, and each evening she checked to make sure that Kevin was properly tucked in with us. This went on until Fran had reached the ripe old age of 56 dog years, a mere 8 years of my own life. It was around this time, that Kevin began to fade away. He had been sewed and re-stuffed on countless occasions, (each time as I stitched him up, Fran looked on, indignant that I was to be put in charge of her friend and not she,) his eyes and nose had been re-attached about once a month, and his poor left ear joined back with his head every other week, but finally, poor Kevin was on his last leg. No amount of patches or stitches or pretty fabrics could ameliorate Kevin. In eight years of puppy love his skin had worn thin. He was hanging on by a few threads, and no one could seem to fix him.
It seemed that somehow Fran had caught on to this intimation, that she too knew that her days with her companion were coming to a close. She began having trouble sleeping, each night, kicking me in the ribs as she raced on in her dreams, I imagine, chasing her dear friend as he hopped away. No one was allowed to touch Kevin at that point. She would growl out gibberish barking sounds if I were to even try to sew his tattered body back together. It wasn’t an angry growl, but one of protection and love, and worry, because each time I stitched up poor Kevin meant that it was a few more moments that they didn’t have together.
Finally, in a last attempt to save Fran from depression, I sought out the maker of Fran’s plush friend, and ordered an identical rabbit, to arrive within a week. Upon his arrival I had hidden Kevin from my dog, in hopes that she might look to her new friend for comfort. Maybe he too could bring Fran the joy that she had always found in Kevin. Maybe he could be Fran’s other half.
Henry was a purple, fluffy, perfectly plump rabbit. His fur gleamed, and his eyes seemed full of excitement and joy, much like Kevin’s once had. He was identical to his predecessor in every way. He looked the same, and felt the same, and gave off that feeling of warmth and love that Kevin had. He was perfect.
Fran hated him.
The day I pulled him out of his little UPS box was possibly the worst day of poor Fran’s life. She stared at me with a look of pure disgust and loathing. As if I were a heathen, bringing her a new messiah to worship. This was not Kevin. This was an abomination.
That day, Fran dug holes throughout the back yard. Later that evening, Henry disappeared.
I had finally given up hope, supposing that maybe there really is just one chance for love in this life, and maybe Fran had lost hers with the passing of Kevin. Maybe Fran would never move on, and would be stuck in a constant state loneliness and despair.
But of course, that night, Kevin became “un-lost” from his hiding place in my sock drawer. I would wake up the next morning to find my giant dog sitting at the foot of my bed, with a look of agony in her eye, staring at a shriveled knot of thread that had once been a rabbit.
Fran died that year. Doctors say it was because she was such a big dog; her heart couldn’t handle pumping that much blood. I say it was that her heart had been broken by a stuffed rabbit. I say she died because that big heart was to heavy without her little friend.
I am sure that there is an after-life for both dogs and toys. And I am sure that in that world, my Fran, and her Kevin run together in grassy pastures, and sleep cuddled up, beneath a giant blanket of stars.
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