In Death, seek life

In Death, Seek Life
This is the credo of the Death Bunnies.

Their mission: To help people find hope in the paradox that lies between impermanence and immortality and to find moments of beauty in loss.

But how do the Death Bunnies live this mission?

What evidence do we have of their existence?
How do we, as they suggest, seek life, in death?

It's my hope to give you a glimmer of what I know about the Death Bunnies and their magic. Fore it has been with great difficulty that I've tried to explain these little critters to others. These little monsters with whom I've danced since the very first time I entered the Bardolands. So perhaps, that's the best place to start... 

...It was three months after my twelfth birthday when my father died unexpectedly. I was at once thrown into a place of confusion, fear, and despair. In an instant, death was a great black wall that surrounded me on all sides. And then, within the hour, the first death bunny hopped unapologetically onto the scene. 

My mother, grandparents, and several of my fathers siblings where upstairs, sitting at the kitchen table, surrounded by the very same darkness that surrounded me. I was downstairs sitting on a couch with my cousin. Both of us silent. 
The phone rang a long, cold, metallic ring from the kitchen wall. Its alarm could be felt as it traveled through the walls of the house. 

I heard the familiar voice of my Uncle Donald, my father’s oldest brother and my cousin's father, answer the phone. “Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay,” he repeated over and over. His voice speeding up and becoming less stable with each repetition. Then, he hung up.

For just a moment, there was an absolute silence followed by his frantic screaming. At first, the darkness grew somehow blacker still. What new horror had come to pass? But with some effort, I began to understand what he was trying to explain to everyone at the table and the darkness was pushed back like a veil.

For the three plus decades since that morning, until the time of his own death, my Uncle Donald swore every time he was asked, that it was my father on the other end of the phone, clear as day, calling one last time to let us all know everything was going to be okay, he was sorry he had to go, and that he loved us.

Now, If you knew my uncle, you'd know he was the furthest thing from what people today might call, “woo-woo.” He wasn't one for believing in ghost stories. No, he was as practical and pragmatic as you get and he could have quite an edge to him at times. To illustrate my point, when he was once told he would have to go to another check-out counter at the grocery store because he had one more than the allowed twelve items, he took his thirteenth item, a jar of mayonnaise, and hurled it up and over his shoulder. Just as the glass jar exploded on the floor behind him he said to the clerk, "There! Now I have twelve!" and proceeded to put the rest of his groceries down to be checked out. This was not a man keen to discuss energies and auras. 

So, for him to swear on his life, that it was his dead brother on the phone that morning of October 13th, well, it was enough to make anyone who knew him take a pause and wonder.

For me however, it was an invitation to take more than a pause.  It was a chance to look behind the veil.

"Perhaps," I thought, "death is not what it appears to be". That thought, that curiosity, sparked a fire within me which has burned ever since. I credit the Death Bunny clan for making it so. They're the ones who opened the phone lines between impermanence and immortality on that day. Of this, I am certain.

It’s been more than 30 years since my fathers transition. In that time, I have had the honor to witness the Death Bunnies work their magic all over. They show up where endings begin. They ease the pain and suffering that comes with our resistance to allow what must happen. To see their work first hand, one only need soften their vision and look for the trail of clues they leave behind.

Within hours of pulling the very first Death Bunny sculpture from its mold, my phone rang. Unlike the clunky wall phone of my childhood, this one, a tiny sleek monolith, capable of things few of us could have imagined 30 years earlier, jumped quickly to voicemail. The message was from my mother who wanted to let me know my grandmother had just passed away. 
How odd it was, that these tiny talismans of death, should be born just hours before the woman who gave life to my own life-giver, should die.

Boarding a plane the very next day, I thought to myself, In Death, Seek Life. And for the week that followed, I saw Death Bunnies everywhere and became certain the Bardolands are far closer than any of us realize. 

Yours in service, 

Capt. R M Trotta
Pirate King of the Bardolands