Our Pet Rabbits

My dad bought the cutest Rex rabbits when I was little.  He built a beautiful hutch for them, and they lived in paradise right under the biggest Sunflower I had ever seen.  Their life was good.  Everyday after school, I remember playing with the rabbits in our yard.  Dad said they were the best rabbits.  Their fur was super soft and they would be worth breeding.

After having them for a few months, we came home from school and went to see them, and they were gone!  Where did they go?  There was a shovel lying up against the hutch, but we thought nothing of it.  When we went inside to ask about the rabbits, Mom said that Dad had killed them for pelts.  I guess dad wanted to sell the rabbit furs. 

In out basement were all the pelts in the process of becoming money in Dad's pocket.  We were all very sad and could not believe our dad would do such a thing.  

Come dinner time, when we asked what was for dinner, my parents didn't say a whole lot.  Finally, I think it was said as a joke, they said we were eating our rabbits.  After all the work my mom had gone through to cook the rabbits, none of us would even taste it.  

Still to this day I don't understand it.  Was our family struggling that much that my dad killed and cooked our pet rabbits for food and a few dollars in the pocket?  Or did my dad really think that the rabbit pelts would be worth enough to make it worth it?  Some things I will never know or understand.  Even when I ask my mom questions about this time in our lives, she doesn't have much to say and claims she doesn't remember.

My mom is a passive, sweet, lady with a heart bigger than any I've ever known.  She doesn't ask many question, she has a heart of gold.  I guess my dad was able to buy and do pretty much as he felt he needed to do, without my mom asking questions.   And for this reason he bought rabbits, and built the amazing rabbit hutch, so we could kill the rabbits and not eat them.