82. Maki’s Bunnies

For many people, the okay thing in their day is their pet. Today we hear about the joy that a pet bunny brings to one of our listeners. 

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Maki:  Hi, it’s Mackey and I wanna share what makes me feel like it’s gonna be okay. It’s my bunnies and like the show, what about them that makes me feel that way really does change every day. In October, 2017, I was scrolling through Instagram in the throes of a major depressive episode and a little white rabbit with.

Caramel and chestnut spots all over his rump and his face popped up. My mom’s friend ran an animal sanctuary called Ladybird based out of Hamilton, Ontario in Canada, and I’d played a benefit concert for them and done other fundraiser activities. So I like to see what was happening with the animals that came into their care.

This little bunny was named Freddy, which if I got him, would absolutely have to go because I thought of Freddy Krueger immediately, and he was described by his foster mom as having a sparkly personality. I knew immediately I had to have him, but my boyfriend of three years had no interest in rabbits and I had no idea how I was gonna make this happen.

I was having a really hard time caring for myself during this depressive state. Peter, my boyfriend of three years who spoiler alert is now my husband had brain surgery for really severe epilepsy, which meant at times he would have three grand mal seizures in a day and sometimes sleep 16 hours a night.

When he would seize, I would dive to make sure that he didn’t hit his head, which all accumulated with him being deemed eligible for a temporal lobectomy, which is a gnarly brain surgery for pretty bad epilepsy. Afterwards, it led to him having to essentially reprogram his brain to learn how to read again and to speak.

So not to confuse soup and soap when he was ordering in a restaurant. All that to say he had enough going on. I showed him the photo and I never once said it was him or the rabbit, but ever since, but ever since Freddy renamed Sawyer came home, I’ve jokingly called him my three year anniversary concession.

Watching Sawyer begin to trust us was incredible. He was abandoned on the streets of Toronto and almost euthanized for being so aggressive, but. In all honesty, there was nothing that this guy wanted more than snuggles aggressively. So we spent days on the floor with him letting him get to know us. He would sit in the corner of the rug and shake his toys under the guise of wanting to play, and once you got over and crawl to him on all fours, he would throw the toy to the side and you’d realize that he had just lured you under his pretenses to play a game of petting him.

And that’s how we got the name Sawyer. We were in the middle of a lost marathon and I mean, he’s a conman with a heart of gold. For years, Sawyer was an only bun son, emphatically. So my husband Peter, coincidentally, is an only child. So I do think that there is a little part of him projecting on two Sawyer’s desire to remain an only bun son.

That said in. February, 2023, I went into the pet store to get some hay and some toys for soy air. He’d been an only bun son for five years now, and our little trio was very happy. The Ottawa Humane Society had decided to boost its visibility by putting rabbits in different pet values throughout the city and.

It worked. I went in, I saw this really sweet boy. He had giant floppy ears. He was white with ginger looking spots and little black spots and whiskers, and he looked so different from Sawyer. And I looked at the sales girl and I jokingly said, I’m gonna go out, see if my husband will come in, but I know that he won’t.

So see you in a few weeks when I need more hay. A minute later, we were back in the store, tucked away in that corner, she opened the top of the cage where the bunny was, and he literally hopped out into my husband’s arms. Peter Sawyer is an only bun son. Salmon looked at me and said, we can’t get him. And I went, I know we can’t.

To which she looked at me puzzled and went, no. I said, we have to get him right. The only stipulation to adopting him other than a small, honestly, too low of a fee was that we needed to have a carrier to take him home. I looked at Peter and broke out into a smile. The carrier is in the car. The biggest fear was going to be introducing these buns.

I mean, it was Sawyer’s apartment. We were essentially, Living in his space, he’s litter trained, completely free roam. We do not have cages in our house. We hope to introduce these bunnies slowly, in all honesty, on Sawyer’s terms. But pancakes had other plans. He got over the gate the first night, and the bonding experience hasn’t been the most smooth.

Recently I had a favorite professor who is also a bunny person, tell me that he has two rabbits and they didn’t bond. And so they live separately and that’s okay. And for the longest time I felt like I was failing if I didn’t get these little guys to bond as they’re human, I was doing something wrong.

But I realized that sometimes people, things. It just doesn’t happen. And so the love that I get from these boys individually watching them start to trust each other, but knowing that it may happen, it may not. It’s gonna be okay. Lightning is struck twice. I’ve found these little furry creatures. I have a person that allows me to be a crazy bunny lady and.

Every now and then I just look at them and I pull their ears back and I put my nose really close to theirs and I feel the twitches. And when I’m eating a pear or raw broccoli, and I don’t even know how, but one of them is in my lap begging for some, or I give Sawyer a strawberry and he slowly nibbles away at it and he has white fur.

And so he gets this little red ring around his lips and he truly looks like bunnicula or watershed down or any other bunny horror configuration you can think of. It’s when I put on a record or I start to jump around the house excitedly, and they don’t move because they trust me. They trust me completely.

And even in moments when I don’t feel like I’m gonna be okay, I can take their little tiny faces in my hand. I can pick pancakes up and rock ’em like a baby in my arms, which he loves, and just whisper. It’s going to be okay.

Nora McInerny: The IT and it’s going to be okay is different every day, and it’s different for all of us.

We’d love to hear yours. You can email us like Haley did, I G T B [email protected]. You can record a voice memo and attach it to that email. You can call us (612) 568-4441.

It’s going to be okay. is a production of Feelings and Co. You can find all of our shows and our [email protected]. Our team is myself, Nora McInerny, Marcel Malekebu, Jordan Turgen, Claire McInerny, and Megan Palmer.