BunBun J. Bunny

The Adventures of My Stuffed Rabbit

Some of my stories span multiple decades. The story of BunBun is such a story.

BunBun was a stuffed velveteen rabbit toy I had for as long as I can remember. I loved her so much.

I don’t remember when BunBun came into my life. I just always had her.

My dad would wake me up in the morning with various antics done by BunBun. Sometimes BunBun would “kick” me out of bed. (Don’t worry, it was funny and definitely didn’t hurt.)

“Kick; get out of bed.” BunBun would say. It was so funny and honestly, was so cute, that it made me stay in bed longer. This is one of my favorite stuffed animal wake up stories with my dad.

“My name is BunBun J. Bunny,” BunBun would tell me. “Ask me what the ‘J’ stands for,” she would say.

“What does the ‘J’ stand for?” I would ask.

“‘Bunny,’” BunBun would say. “My parents couldn’t spell!”

Sometime, BunBun thought I was a roller coaster and would slide from my neck down my side, down to my knees while saying, “Wheeeee!!!” It was totally cute and fun.

BunBun went with me everywhere. BunBun was my absolute favorite toy for a long long time.

[a photo of little Jodi, wearing a poncho, sitting in a set of bleachers, with BunBun next to her, as they enjoy a basketball game together.]

At some point, my step-mom-to-be and my dad moved our belongings from Princeton to Vienna. I guess they thought I would be underfoot, so they had me stay at my soon-to-be aunt’s house. I think she was engaged to one of my uncles, but she still lived at home with her mom and siblings. This must have been the spring of 1980. I was almost 8 years old.

After the weekend there was over, I realized I didn't have BunBun. BunBun was nowhere. I was completely certain that I had left BunBun in my aunt's mom's blue station wagon. I was probably crying and upset.

My aunt and her mom and siblings combed that car for BunBun. They looked incredibly thoroughly, probably a minimum of five times. In the trunk, under the seats. Everywhere. As certain as I was that I had left BunBun there, they were as certain that I had not. They checked their home all over. They checked their garage. I know these people and have for almost my whole life: they are thorough. BunBun was nowhere.

Years later, I learned they had also driven all the streets we had driven together to see if I had thrown her out the window somewhere. The word “thorough” doesn’t even describe the care they took in trying to find my beloved toy.

I was so devastated. For months.

I remember during the next school year, our 3rd grade teacher at Churchill Road Elementary School, Mrs. Sherman, read the book, “Velveteen Rabbit” to us. For me, it was a story of BunBun. Maybe my lost BunBun had been so loved and cherished, that BunBun must have turned real and hopped away to live a happy life in Mother Nature. I could only hope. BunBun had felt completely alive and real to me, and I had to trust that’s what happened.

At some point, I remember finding a new yellow stuffed animal BunBun sitting and looking at me in a grocery store. BunBun (#2) came home with me that same day.

I finally had a new BunBun! This one had wire in her ears and very stiff arms, also from wire, whereas my tan velveteen-like BunBun had been soft and squishy, and well-loved – all over. It was definitely an adjustment for me. But I was so glad to have BunBun back.

At some point along the way, I saw a pink bunny at the grocery store. And he came home too – his name was Pinky, and he became BunBun’s husband.

Then, along came a smaller dark yellow bunny. This stuffed animal became Baby BunBun. Baby of course, to BunBun and Pinkie.

Every year, my dad would go to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show. One year, he won me a small pink elephant. This animal became "Baby Pinky,” and was in the same family of rabbits. The four of them were decidedly a family unit in my mind. I loved them all.

When I was 16 years old, in July, 1988, I went to Barrhead, Alberta, Canada to stay with my mom and her husband, Bob, for two weeks.

She owned a motel along the Alaska Highway. One night, at my request, she made lasagna. It didn't taste the same as I remembered from when I was the little girl in New Jersey watching her with big noodles and big pots. My mom kept apologizing for burning the cheese.

My bio mom had been a professional chef at restaurants. And I had high hopes that this lasagna meal would be something extra-special. And: it was pretty terrible. I had a hard time eating it. I did not complain. I had grown up eating everything on my plate, and I did it at this dinner, too. It was quite likely one of the most difficult meals I have ever eaten.

When you have not seen your parent for nearly a decade, request your favorite dish of theirs, they make it and screw up – you don't push it away. You just eat it and realize that everything about this particular meal is about love, and definitely not about taste. We got through it. My step-dad, Bob, was quiet for the meal. He was generally quiet all the time.

At the motel, my bio mom put me to work as a maid, so I learned to speed clean hotel rooms too. She had me cleaning with a Filipino guy named Ray. It turned out that Ray was gay. He was a lot of fun, and we laughed a lot as we cleaned those hotel rooms together.

At one point, I had some spare time, so I poked around the front room of the hotel that had the counter where the guests checked in. I opened the cabinet to see what was in there. It held a small basket of children’s toys – blocks, a truck, dolls and stuffed animals that had clearly been played with by grubby kids.

My eyes got really big when I suddenly realized that one of the stuffed animals was probably a dirty, much more played with and probably abused version of BunBun!

My old tan velveteen rabbit! The ears were no longer the same length or even the same shape as each other. The cute body of the rabbit was now more of a blob. The nose was ripped off, and the color was much more brown than I had remembered. I picked up the stuffed rabbit, went to my mom and said, "is this BunBun?"

To her credit, she admitted it: "Yes," she said.

She told me she knew she was leaving me behind and she had taken BunBun as something to remember me by. I understood her sentiment. But I couldn't believe she had outright stolen from her own child. She had no idea how devastated I had been to lose the one thing that had been a part of me first long as I could remember.

I had changed homes, schools, friends, lost my mom, and even changed states, bedrooms, beds, everything. Through it all, I had my dad and BunBun. And then BunBun was gone.

I stole BunBun back from her. I put BunBun in my suitcase and never asked permission. I felt incredibly guilty – I fought with feelings of guilt over this for years. Hadn't I been as guilty as she was – stealing the identical animal? I did eventually let go of those feelings. How come she hadn't told me right away that BunBun was in the cabinet and that I could have her back?

I felt a lot of rage towards her over this. And I never let her "have it." I knew she had been in pain to leave me, and, believe it or not, I had a lot of sympathy for her in my heart. At least I thought I knew that. I fervently believed what my step-mom had taught me – that my mom was messed up. In and out of jail for various reasons. I realized she was unable to keep me. Why should I also yell at her for stealing BunBun? It was already done and over with, and now I had BunBun back.

I felt really horrible for making my aunt and her family comb through their car and home so thoroughly for a toy rabbit that was never there. I am positive my aunt still remembers the story; we have referenced it a few times over the years. I am certain my aunt probably has emotions mixed in with this whole BunBun story also. I wish it could have been different but, "c'est la vie."

I grew up, and had my own kids. BunBun and also Baby Bear became frequent companions in helping my children calm down and go to sleep at night. My kids loved BunBun and Baby Bear. We had so many fun stories and antics with them! Baby Bear likes to eat pies, but usually falls face down in them when she tries to carry them. “Oops!” She says.

[a photo of my son, in his pajamas, holding Bun Bun sometime in the early 2000s]

BunBun's story does not end here.

As a parent, it seemed that every Christmas, every birthday, every holiday invited more stuffed animals to enter our universe. Stuffed animals started coming out the wazoo. The amount of stuffed animals that came in the house was astonishing. At some point I read horrible advice about rotating toys. I remember putting tons of random stuffed animals into a large black trash bag. I had the intention of rotating half of the toys on a monthly or three-month basis.

Probably three years later, I came across a large trash bag in one of my son’s closets. I am certain it was during a fit of being exhausted and hugely overwhelmed. I could feel that it had stuffed animals in it. I could see we also had countless stuffed animals on the floor. And this bag had been filled who-knows-when with who-knows-what in it. The advice of countless cleaning and tidying books and blogs I had read said to throw it away without looking. If I hadn't missed it by now, “I would never miss it!” these blogs and books proclaimed.

Well, at some point BunBun #2 had disappeared and BunBun #1 did too. I don't know if they disappeared together in the trash bag purge or not. I had never opened it and looked. But, alas, they are both gone.

Pinky is still with us. So is baby BunBun.

At one point, I started combing eBay for a BunBun #3. I searched for “1970s bunny rabbit stuffed animals.” I did buy one. But it is not much bigger than Baby BunBun. I also have other stuffed rabbits. I have “Cuppy” from the Lindsay Lohan version of "The Parent Trap," and I have a few Peeps bunnies. I also have a green Beanie Baby rabbit named "Hippity," given to me by one of my brothers, a rabbit that shares my birthday! It was a sweet gift from my brother. But none of these rabbits are the same as either of my BunBuns.

I guess not every story has a happy ending. At least I still have Baby Bear.

[a photo of a glass fishnet ball that used to be my grandfather’s, and 2 beige Jellycat bunnies, and Baby Bear, with Baby BunBun in Baby Bear’s lap.]

Maybe both BunBuns really did turn real, and they are outside, cavorting in Mother Nature and eating the lettuce in my garden. I may have seen one last Spring in my neighborhood, come to think of it.