Sheepy cries out, “Bunny, Bunny, where are you Bunny?” Bunny was taken away from Sheepy. Bunny never would leave Sheepy willingly. Bunny has now gone to be an angel.
I’m Sheepy (I was born in the year of the Sheep) and my beloved friend Charley was Bunny (he was born in the year of the Rabbit). Rabbits and Sheep are said to be good matches. Charley was a wonderful match for me. We hit it off the first time was chatted. Even though we were online friends and never met in person (he lived in Canada and I in the US) our friendship stretched over many years, thousands of conversations, and exchanges of Birthday, Easter, and Christmas cards.
My Charley Bunny passed away suddenly of a heart attack on January 16, 2021. He was 57. I’m heartbroken over the loss of Charley. I can’t believe my beloved Bunny is gone. My Bunny is now an angel. He was my angel. That was the kind of person he was. I’m now going to write about him.
He was my lifeline for the last several years. He was precious to me. I struggle with depression and anxiety. I’m practically homebound. Whenever I was feeling in a crisis, or really down my sweet Bunny would always have time to listen to me and offer comfort without being judgmental. He responded to my silly sense of humor. We spent hours talking about rabbits and cats (and sheep and chipmunks). He inspired me to write children’s stories about a sheep named Sheepy and his special friend Bunny who loved each other very much. Now Bunny is gone. My heart is breaking. I feel devastated.
My beloved Charley passed away. He was gone for two weeks before I even knew he had passed. Since he was an internet friend no one told me. He just disappeared. Sheep cried and cried out to him on messenger, but there was no answer. I only found out he was gone because someone posted a notice on his Facebook page.
As I’m writing this sentence, I haven’t eaten for four days and am still crying on and off. Stupidly, I went through the same thing last November over the ending of a TV show. The ending of that show dredged up all kinds of feelings of loss and abandonment in me, and I went through several days of anxiety over it. And Charley patiently read my blogs and listened to me trying to understand what I was feeling. He insisted I eat. He was worried my blood sugar would get too low. That was another thing we bonded over. We both were struggling with type II diabetes. He was worried. He was like that. Now I need Charley to get me through the loss of Charley!
The last words he sent to me were: “Binkie Binkie.” A binkie is what a rabbit does when they are happy. They jump up in the air and kick their legs out in joy. When Sheepy would tell him something happy or funny, Charley would do a binkie, and if it was extra special, Charley would do a binkir, which is a binkie with a full Bunny backflip.
He had a presence about him that was gentle and comforting. He, like Sheepy, hated when people were coarse or bitter, or mean-spirited or judgmental. He liked things to be soft and sweet. He loved Christmas and decorating his home to make it all colorful and festive. He loved making cakes for his family’s birthdays and decorating them with real live flowers that he grew in the backyard of his family’s home. He hated crude language. He would said “Rats” instead of a curse word. People like him are so rare. I was blessed to be friends with him.
He loved fishes. He would send me pictures of his tanks to show off all his beautiful fish he was so proud of. The pictures at the top and bottom of this page are of his aquariums. He fretted over them. Regularly cleaning the tanks so the fish had clean water and keeping them nice. Watching the fish calmed him when he was upset or stressed.
My Bunny Wunny, Bun Bun, Bunnikins, Charley Bunny (I had lots of silly names for him), was a modest, humble person. He didn’t always give himself enough credit for what a genuine and caring person he was. He was actually quite child-like. He was never vicious, or hateful, or sarcastic to anyone. Ok, maybe sometimes he would be less than generous to his youngest Monkey brother that he did not get along with very well. Both Bunny and his Sheepkins had Monkey brothers, so we both knew how irritating they could be.
What he had was an artistic soul. He wasn’t an artist, but he loved natural and beautiful things. He loved the flowers he and his mother grew in the backyard. He loved his brightly colored fishes. He loved decorating his home in festive colors for the holidays from Christmas to Chinese New year. He loved making cakes for his family on their birthdays. His favorite cake was carrot cake (hehe) with cream cheese frosting. He liked making cheesecakes. I always teased Charley that Sheepy would come and gobble up all of Bunny’s cake. Bunny always had a slice of cake ready for Sheepy to gobble. Sheepy would pretend to eat his cake and bah while doing a sheep dance (and pooping, because happy sheep poop). It became a running joke between us over the years. Sheep would dance and poop and Bunny would do binkies.
Every night, or early in the morning, before we went to bed, we would tuck each other in. We just started doing that because we were being silly. It became our nightly ritual: “time to tuck.” And a night chat ended with an emoticon of a star. If the sun was up, we used an emoticon of the sun. Yes, we were silly. Time to be tucked in with the “baby critters.” We had our baby critters and our imaginary animal friends that lived in the imaginary house and in the imagery barn.
I built an imaginary house for us, where I live with my bunny rabbits, and he lived with his kitties. Outside there were chipmunks and squirrels, and in the yard lived silky chickens. Charlie had a pond with a fountain which was full of beautiful fish. After the house was built, a farm with a barn, and a meadow soon appeared filled with flowers and yummy green grass to eat for the sheep flock that lives there, and a sheepdog to watch over them, and there were donkeys (Donkey and his boyfriend Valentino), Chippy and Chilly the chipmunks, Mr. Squirrl and his boyfriend Beau, and a cow named Bessy. And then I started making up children’s stories about our animal friends with Charley’s suggestions. Wish I had completed more of the stories so Bunny could have read them all.
In our stories, Sheepy was a silly sheep who loved having his special Bunny riding on his back while they played in the meadow. Bunny was really a superhero in disguise. His secret identity was SuperBunny and he had all kinds of special powers to protect Sheepy and the sheep flock. Bunny could leap high up into the air; he could swat away bullets with his floppy ears and shoot laser beams out of his eyes. Bunny had a supersonic tail waggle and helicopter ears. He even had a healing tongue, and wrapped his paws around Sheepy’s neck and gave Sheepy kisses on the cheek. Sheep loved that so much and kept a little dab of honey behind his ear for Bunny to lick. SuperBunny has now become an AngleBunny.
When it was tucking time, Sheepy would leave magic poop balls around Bunny’s room to keep the woolyburglars away. Those mean creatures that come in the night and steal Sheepy and Bunny’s candy. Sheep would tease Bunny that the ewes would come while Bunny was sleeping and give him big sloppy wet kisses because all the ewes had a crush on Bunny. And every Easter, Bunny would lay chocolate Easter eggs wrapped in shiny foil for the children, because magic chocolate Easter eggs come from rabbits. He would save a special chocolate magic egg just for Sheepy.
Charley wanted a kitten, but he couldn’t have pets because they triggered his asthmas attacks. Before I met him, he had adopted some homeless kittens that he found in the backyard. He tied ribbons around their necks and named them after the colors. He talked about Blue and Christmas the most. His father removed them from the house because of Charlie’s attacks, but Charlie still missed them anyhow. Sheep adopted some cats that needed homes, a brother and sister. We called them the “royal babies” because the people who first had them named them Liz and Phil. Charley always wanted to know how the royal babies were doing and see pictures of them. I think Charley adopted them too. He always wanted to know how they were doing because he couldn’t have his own.
We spoke frequently about him getting a new kitten, a little white teacup kitten with black spots, a small kitten that could live on his bed and sleep with him at night. We pretended that he had a kitten that we just called kitty. Kitty had a friend named Ducky that Bunny hatched under his fluffy white tail. These were Bunny’s baby critters. Every night we tucked each other in bed with our baby critters. I tucked in Bunny with Kitty and Ducky. And he tucked in Sheepy with his little Bunny, Red and Blue penguin, Monkey, and Teddy (the stuffed animals that Sheepy sleeps with). I wanted to get him his own baby critters to snuggle with. I can’t now. I had some picked out, but I never had the money to get him one.
My Bunny liked playing online games that showed his artistic qualities. He would construct beautiful underwater reefs. He loved fish so much. He would build cityscapes. He loved his little suburb of Markham, part of the Toronto metro area, and all its events and festivals. He made cyber cafés for his online friends to visit. He loved beautiful, colorful things.
We watched Youtube videos together, about kitties and bunnies, about cooking and recipes, and even food blogs. Bunny loved watching baking completions; he loved romantic comedies and Christmas movies. His favorite TV show was Survivor. He loved figure skating, especially the pairs’ competition.
Charley was a professionally trained baker and pastry chef. Later he learned to build websites and managed a website for twenty years informing locals and visitors to Markham about all the local sites and events of his community that he loved. He finally had to give up Guidingstar.ca because of covid. He complained he was tired of it anyway after twenty years.
Charley’s family was of Chinese ancestry, but they were born in Jamaica and later immigrated to Canada when Charley and his younger brothers were still kids. They prepared Jamaican cuisine as well as Chinese food in their home.
Charley struggled with being gay, and his family was not always very supportive. Since he lived with his parents and a younger brother, he has to be low-key about it. He didn’t have his first boyfriend until his thirties (who cheated on him) because of his shyness. His attempts at relationships didn’t work out well for him.
When I first met Charley on gay.com, he was having a crisis with his most recent ex-bf, who was seeing someone else. He made my Bunny cry. I think Charley was reaching out for someone, and I was so happy to be there for him. Once he told me, that after we met and started chatting, that he felt he didn’t need to have a bf. He had his Sheepy. That made Sheepy feel so happy and proud.
We hardly ever talked about sex. Sex was never an issue between us, there was no romantic attraction. We were emotionally comfortable together, I wish I could find that again with someone, but so many men feel the need to pressure for sex. Over the seven years we chatted, he dated some guys. He told me about each one. None of them worked out. But Sheep was always there.
I never told Charley this, but sometimes I would pretend he was my husband, platonic of course. He was attracted to older men with white hair. Charley was actually older than me, so we teased that Sheepy was too young for Bunny. Sheepy liked handsome Asian men, so Sheepy didn’t want anyone else. He had his beloved Bunny.
Over the years, we exchanged cards on holidays and birthdays. I still have all of them. In the last card he sent, Bunny wrote that Sheepy was his best friend. That meant so much to me. He was my best friend too. I will cherish the cards he sent. I became very emotionally reliant on Bunny. It’s hard to let him go.
The last time I chatted with him was the day before he passed. Over the next two weeks, I went to his messenger and called out to him, but he was already gone. I was scared I had lost him, and I had. I feel so guilty that I didn’t know.
I cry knowing that my Bunny was scared and in pain, and I didn’t know, that I couldn’t hold or comfort him. I know he wanted to stay. I know he didn’t want to go. I know he didn’t hurt anyone on purpose. I know he didn’t want to hurt me. I feel so guilty that I didn’t know he was gone, that I was not morning him for those first two weeks.
Charley leaves behind his mother, two brothers, and two nieces that he loved so much, and loved spending hours playing with. They will miss their uncle Bunny so much.
Recently, in the last few years, Charley began to experience what he thought was the presence of his beloved grandma about the house, the grandma that loved him the most and made him the wool blanket that Sheepy tucked Bunny under each night. He said he could hear her dropping her slipper in the hallway outside his office space. He would look, but there was no one there. It spooked Bunny.
A while back, Bunny told Sheepy that he had the feeling that Bunny wouldn’t live much longer. Sheep said that was silly, don’t scare Sheepy like that. Bunny is just feeling sad. It’s not true.
Charley Bunny might have been having a premonition of his own passing.
Charley told me I was his “Beloved Sheep.” I remember telling Charley that: “Sheepy loves his Bunny.” Instead of using that silly third-person “Sheepy,” I wish I would have said, “I love you too Charley.”
I know that Charley was not very “churched” as they say. His family was nominally Catholic. Charley occasionally attended Protestant services with his mother. I don’t know if he considered himself to be Christian. We never talked about that. I believe Charley was Christian in every way that mattered. He loved others. He was kind to animals. He was gentle and shy. He was my beloved friend.
Go be an angel my beloved Bunny. Sheepy loves you.
It was, however, woke female writers of Destiel fanfiction that dragged me into critical theory. I remember this stuff from graduate school but was surprised to find it in fanfiction. I had not realized how far outside of the university it had spread in recent years. I remember how much I disliked it then and find it even more insidious now. It may have seemed respectable in the past, but now it just feels exploitive and manipulative. Its jargon ladened, double-speak vocabulary and opportunistic claims to “Social Justice” I think have misled and corrupted many young people who are well-meaning and want to do the right thing. This wokeness has made them meanspirited, intellectually ill-equipped, emotionally volatile, ungrateful, glib, sanctimonious, facile, and easily exploited by academic and political militants. Their universities and professors didn’t really do them any favors. They were cheated out of a good education. I will be “canceled” for this, but it doesn’t matter, if I wasn’t good enough for the academy before, I’m surely not good enough for them now either.
In the title of this post, I put the word “women” in quotation marks because many younger female persons no longer identify as women anymore. Woman no longer exists as a designation for someone with an adult female body. For many young gender activists, woman is no longer a biological fact but rather exists only as a subjective identity. Many younger females (as assigned at birth) today now identify as queer, trans, and non-binary, non-gender conforming, and have rejected the label of woman. In the past, these young women would probably have been more likely to identify as lesbians (women who are sexually attracted to other women). This seems particularly prevalent for females under the age of thirty. Among males, these identifications are less pronounced, but many younger males are identifying as queer, trans, and non-binary, non-gender conforming instead of as gay men.
For people who have not been following my blog posts, a few months back, I was developing a project to read Destiel fanfiction written by gay men based on the paranormal TV show Supernatural that aired on the CW network from 2005-2020. My intent was to compare how women and gay men approached their fanfiction differently, and how being gay influenced men’s writing. The world of fanfiction, especially Destiel (Dean/Castiel) is overwhelmingly female, although some gay men also write Destiel. When I approached some Facebook groups dedicated to Destiel fanfiction and asked some questions, I got a lot of push back, including accusations that I was a misogynist and a transphobic bigot when I asked about women and gay men writing Destiel fanfiction. I didn’t understand this reaction. 
The dominance of women in reading and writing m/m fanfiction is demonstrated in the Fansplaining Shipping Survey (conducted in April 2019) that focused primarily on m/m slash fans. Of the respondents, 72% identified themselves as female, whereas only 9% identified as male and another 9% as transgender. Respondents were allowed to select multiple categories, of those categories, 21% identified themselves as non-binary/genderqueer and only 20% identified as cisgender. It seems reasonable to conclude from these numbers that the vast majority of m/m slash fans are women, and of those women, they are generally evenly divided between women who identify as cisgender and those who identify as non-binary/genderqueer.
I think this should be my last blog on the subject. I’m starting to feel calm again, regaining my composure after an emotional week following the series finale. Finding some consolation.
c. e. hammock 