What a bunny speed-dating story teaches us about grief, love, and healing through connection
A story recently published in Harvard Magazine caught my attention because, on the surface, it is about a grieving rabbit who goes speed dating. Yes, bunny speed dating.
In Lydialyle Gibson’s essay, Petunia, a domesticated rabbit, loses her bonded companion, Oliver. After his death, she becomes restless, guarded, and unable to settle. Her humans eventually bring her to a rabbit rescue shelter to see whether she might bond with a new companion. The first attempts do not go well. Petunia rejects one potential match after another.
Then she meets Spruce, another rabbit who has also recently lost his bonded companion. Something about him feels different. Their bond develops slowly, over months of proximity, patience, and carefully supported contact.
I found the story moving, not only because it is sweet and unexpected, but because it gives such a vivid image of something I see again and again in couples therapy: we long for connection, and when connection has been lost or hurt, we often protect against the very closeness we need.
Why connection matters for emotional and physical health
One of the striking points in Gibson’s article is that rabbits require companionship for their well-being. She points to research suggesting that social animals are affected by companionship emotionally, physically, and biologically.
Human beings are relational creatures too. We are born dependent, and we develop in connection. Our nervous systems are shaped through repeated experiences of being soothed, protected, delighted in, and responded to. And yet, we sometimes talk about relationships as though they matter less than achievement or independence.
The research tells a different story. Gibson cites John Cacioppo’s work on loneliness and its effects on the brain and body, as well as Robert Waldinger’s work with the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has found that good relationships are strongly tied to health, happiness, and longevity.
This same idea shows up in broader research on social connection and health. In a widely cited meta-analysis of 148 studies, psychologist Julianne Holt-Lunstad and colleagues found that stronger social relationships were associated with a 50% increased likelihood of survival. The quality of our relationships is linked to how long and how well we live.
This challenges one of the great myths of modern life: that maturity means needing less. Healthy adulthood involves differentiation and the capacity to be alone, but it also includes the capacity to reach for connection, repair when needed, and know that we matter to someone.
Grief, love, and the nervous system
Another idea from Gibson’s article that stayed with me comes from neuroscientist Stephanie Cacioppo, who has studied the brain in love and in grief. She describes a strong neurobiological tie between the two.
That makes sense to me. The deeper the bond, the deeper the disorganization when that bond is lost. Love becomes part of how we move through the world. The people we love are woven into our routines, our nervous system, and our sense of the future. We reach for them in small ways all day long, often without even realizing it. When that person is gone, the loss affects the whole system — emotionally, physiologically, cognitively, and relationally.
Cacioppo explains in Gibson’s article that the brain rewires itself when we fall in love, and then has to rewire itself again in grief. That helps explain why acute grief can feel so disorienting. People who are grieving may feel overwhelmed by ordinary tasks, forget to eat, struggle to make decisions, or feel unlike themselves.
This matters because people so often judge themselves in grief. They wonder why they are not “doing better.” They worry that they are too sensitive, too needy, too slow to recover, too changed by the loss. But if love reorganizes us, grief will reorganize us too. We cannot simply “move on” from a deep bond. We slowly learn how to live in a world where that bond has changed form.
And new connection doesn’t erase old love. Petunia’s bond with Spruce did not make Oliver matter less. In human life, too, opening to a new relationship, friendship, community, or source of support does not dishonor what came before. It may simply help life begin to move again.
When connection feels risky
This is where Petunia’s story feels so human to me. After losing Oliver, she needed connection. And when new connection was offered, she rejected it. That may sound contradictory, but it’s deeply familiar.
In couples therapy, I often see partners caught in this same bind. A partner longs to be close but becomes critical when closeness is offered. Someone wants reassurance but pushes away the person trying to give it. Someone wants repair but cannot yet risk trusting the person who hurt them.
After loss, betrayal, or prolonged disconnection, the nervous system may not experience closeness as simple or safe. The longing for love remains, surrounded by protection. So we test. We retreat. We protest. We become prickly. We say we want connection, but when it comes near, something in us says: careful.
This is survival intelligence.
In Imago Relationship Therapy, we often understand reactivity as protection. Instead of asking only, “Why is this person being difficult?” we can ask, “What does this person’s nervous system not yet trust?”
Petunia was not ready for just any rabbit. She needed enough safety and time — and perhaps someone who understood something about loss. We’re not so different, as humans.
What moved me most about Petunia and Spruce was how slowly their bond developed. Spruce did not magically fix her grief, and Petunia did not suddenly become open and affectionate because the “right” rabbit appeared. Their connection grew because they were allowed to be near each other without having to be close too quickly.
That feels important because I think we often want healing to look more dramatic than it usually does. We imagine the big breakthrough conversation, the instant repair, the moment when everything softens and changes. And sometimes those moments do happen. But more often, relational healing grows through smaller experiences repeated over time: a hard conversation slows down before it becomes the same old fight, or someone responds with a little more tenderness than they did last time.
These moments may seem small, but they help the nervous system begin to learn: maybe this is safer than I thought. Maybe I don’t have to protect myself quite so much here. In couples therapy, this is often the work: creating the conditions where connection can return. Underneath the criticism, withdrawal, or defensiveness, there is usually a longing to know: Do I still matter to you? Can we find our way back?
A final thought
Petunia’s story begins as something whimsical, almost funny: a grieving rabbit goes speed dating. But it points us back to something very real. The relationships that sustain us need tending.
The people we love — our partners, friends, family members, and chosen communities — help shape our health, our belonging, and even our sense of who we are. These relationships are precious. They are also living things, which means they need attention, repair, and tender care.
So perhaps Petunia and Spruce offer us a small but meaningful reminder to care for the relationships that help us feel most alive. And when those bonds feel strained or distant, it is worth getting support — through therapy, trusted community, or a more honest conversation — so connection has a chance to return.