Why I love bunnies. Obviously there are issues and emotions involved.

When I was little, my dad died. His name was Eugene Andre du Plessis. He was of French heritage (a Huguenot) and beautiful. He was a chartered accountant, chess champion, the love of my mother's life and they had three really cool kids together. He died when I was about Noah and Benjamin's age and I don't remember much about him. After that, we didn't have loads of spending money - things were pretty un-cool for a long time. To this day I can't eat chicken livers, rice, pilchards, kidneys or pink viennas as that was our diet for a long time and I praise my mother for keeping us together when everything else sort of fell apart.

Exit violin music. 

My mom remarried when I was a little older and introduced me to my best friend, my dad-dad, Nicholas Clark (everyone calls him Nobby because he's British and over there all Clarks are called Nobby). He is awesome. He is the best dad you never met. Never judges, kind nature, total non-conformist, really funny and super chilled. They scraped all their change together and him and my mom started a company when us kids were puppies. They had R17 rand left in the bank when it was all set up - I'll never forget that story cause MAN they love to tell it :) Fair enough. Things got better and then allofasudden things got great. Big contracts, tenders, deals... Things were good and they worked so hard. The result is that at some point we didn't see much of Nobby at all. 

He used to work until past our bedtime at the factory (Empangeni Rail) almost every night, sometimes for weeks and months on end. Sometimes he even slept there. I still don't know how my working mom kept it all together with three kids, homework, dinner - and she cooked us dinner from scratch every single night guys. She really was / is the best mom and worked so hard. I wish I knew all of this back then and that I'd somehow made it easier on her, that I'd grown up faster. 

Anyway. 

Sometimes I would go to my parents' office after school or over weekends just to see them and hang out. I would always sit at their receptionist's desk and draw. My dad used to have this black fake-leather briefcase that he carried his 'book' around in. There weren't cellphones in those days - remember that? So I used to sit at the receptionist's desk and draw with the only colours available at offices - highlighters. I used to draw bunnies because as kids that is like the easiest animal to draw. I used to then cut them out, write my name on the back and put them in to an inner folder of my dad's briefcase. I did this because I suppose I missed him and wanted to be part of his day while he was always at work. He used to treasure these bunnies and after a while we used to call them his 'Briefcase Bunnies'. It became a little tradition of ours and then my poor dad got a briefcase bunny for every birthday, Father's Day and Christmas for many, many years. 

We joked about the briefcase bunnies on the phone the other day and he said that he's kept and treasured each bunny and that they're packed away safely. I can't wait to go home or for him to visit again so I can see them. I'll take pictures and put them up here on the blog to 'keep'. 

Boys I hope that we'll share our own little bunny stories together when you're older and maybe it will become a little heirloom in the family. I'd also really like it if you guys could make your gramps a briefcase bunny too, and we can send them over for Christmas. I have a feeling that bunnies will somehow always be a part of our family. Isn't that awesome?