…Not a brother, as in blood or marriage, but a brother nonetheless….

I only knew him about a year and a half, and watched as he bloomed from a shy, scared, and reclusive soul into a vibrant, glowing, loving and friendly one.

His passing leaves a hole in my heart, but a patch in my faith.

Now some may say “It was just a rabbit”…WRONG…there is NEVER such a thing as “just”…if we can label things like that, then we ourselves will be labelled thus as well… it was JUST a person…JUST a man…JUST a woman…JUST a child.

This label would detract from the loving and gentle soul I saw bloom in my brief care.

When I first got him, he was shy…not wanting to be touched or held… staying always just out of arms reach.

Patience, love, tenderness, and kindness brought him out of that shell

He learned to LOVE being held, petted, talked to, and played with.

Never in my life have I saw eyes of his beautiful blue go from fear of being touched to the warm soft look he would give me as he fell asleep in my arms whilst I stroked his ears and head.

My brother was fun-loving, and kind to the other friends and companions in my house.

He never once bit, or attacked, scratched or kicked any of them…he was truly a gentle soul of patience and kindness.

When my beloved Bobby was unable to walk or run, Billy would sit near him, nuzzle him, and clean his ears and nose…

This is the kind of soul needed in today’s world…one that loves freely, cares deeply, and does not care if they are black or white, red or brown…but simply loves for the sake of being a soul.

Billy leaves behind a grieving set of parents who already miss the loving nuzzle of him when he wanted to be picked up…

Billy loved to be outside, for I understand this was something he was not used to in his life before we came to know him.

When we found him in the adoption centre my wife immediately fell in love with him…this big fluffy ball of white fur with the sad blue eyes.

The carer took him out of the area, placed him in her arms, and when she looked into his eyes she said “I want him”

I, of course, was a bit more pragmatic..I asked the carer “Why was he surrendered?” …the carer, without hesitation, said “He got ‘too big’ they said”.

Both the wife and I shared a look at each other, knowing the rising anger inside of us both and she said “How can ANYONE toss aside something THIS beautiful!?!?”…

We rode home with him, his head nestled against the palm of her hand in his carrier, and he became our brother.

He passed yesterday…quite suddenly…almost without warning or herald.

We had rushed him to the vet, because he had stopped eating, and before we left he placed his head on my arm and hand, the way he was want to do, as if to say “It will be okay…I am loved, warm, happy, and yours”….he had his favourite pink blanket with him, the one he took to on his first day…his comfort blanket…his favourite toy and bed.

4 hours later the vet called to say he had passed.

The part that hurts the most was the vet had said she went in there to check on his progress and when she opened up the door to his pen he lifted his head up off of that blanket and put his head in her hand.

She said he looked directly into her eyes as if to say “Pass this to my family, for I cannot”…and he passed there in her arms with his head on her arm and hand.

I wrapped him in his favourite blanket last night for his final journey. I could not let him enter Heaven without his comfort blanket and his play blanket…the same blue one he went to the vet with the first time we had to take him in for his examination a month after he moved in with us.

He would chase that blue blanket around the house…me with the dragging it behind, and him belting after his shaking his long floppy ears and pouncing on the end….

Tears of love almost blinded me digging his grave next to our beloved Poppy and Bobby… knowing that somewhere ‘up there’ he was racing around with the corner of that blue blanket firmly clamped in his teeth and shaking his long floppy ears.

I held it together, nearly, until I had blessed the ground and the remains…but seeing his little wrapped body inside of that blue and pink blankets broke me…and the tears did not stop for many minutes.

I will have to carve his marker…I will carve it, my wife will paint it, and I will varnish it, and we will place it so that the world will know a beloved soul is now at rest away from this world of woe.

He had love, freedom (he was NEVER in a hutch or cage in MY house), warmth, food, treats, and all of the loving cuddles he asked for and wanted.

Now some may think it wrong to pray over a departed companion, and some may also say that it is a sin to…but you know what I say to that?

If they cannot shed tears for something that showed PURE LOVE, and PURE selflessness, then THEY HAVE NO SOUL INSIDE OF THEIR HUMAN BODY.

..I buried my BROTHER today..and one day if I am worthy, I will see my beloved Billy, Bobby, and Poppy in those same happy fields of my Master’s Realm.

Requiescat In Pace, sweet William…till we meet again, my brother.