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By Joline Gutierrez Krueger / Journal Staff Writer Published: Friday, February 25th, 2022 at 10:05PM Updated: Saturday, February 26th, 2022 at 12:05AM

It was love at first sight the moment she cradled the plush bunny in her tiny arms.

The bunny, fat and bunchy and brown, was among a collection of toys belonging to a cousin who was moving. Instead of boxing it up with the others, it was given to the little girl, then age 2.

“She immediately latched on to it,” Sarah Couch said. “Rabbit became her security object, her constant, her bestie, her everything.”

That’s saying a lot for a little girl who came from nearly nothing, born to a young woman barely able to care for herself. The young woman’s mother had killed herself. Eventually, the young woman did, too.

The little girl was placed in foster care. She was 83 days old when she came home with Couch, a child and adolescent therapist. That, it turns out, was another case of love at first sight.

Couch nicknamed her Taterz because she was so tiny and brown and cute, and the name stuck.

“Everybody who knows her knows her by that name,” Couch said. “She insists everybody call her that.”

Couch stuck, too, and though it took some years and a lot of bureaucratic flotsam, she adopted Taterz, who turned 5 in January.

Taterz adopted Rabbit, lovingly wrapping him in a blue baby blanket like a burrito and securing it with Dollar Store hair ties.

She took him everywhere, including to bed each night.

“My girl has dealt with more trauma and loss than most adults ever have to deal with,” Couch said. “I think that helps explain why Rabbit is so meaningful to her.”

Maybe that also helps explain why on one night earlier this month it was so devastating, so heartbreaking when Rabbit went missing – and why so many people cared about it.

“She was absolutely distraught,” Couch said. “We searched everywhere for Rabbit. We went to my mom’s house to see if maybe Rabbit was there.”

That trip resulted in a flat tire but no Rabbit.

Their best guess was that he had fallen out of the car at Altura Park near Morningside NE, where Couch’s mother had taken Taterz on Feb. 13.

Late that night, Couch posted on social media about the missing bunny.

“Yes, I know it’s a long shot,” she wrote. “And she is prepared to not have Rabbit found. Learning about loss is so hard, and I’m taking extreme actions like this to help her learn to reach out and ask for help from her people.”

She created a flyer that included a photo of how Rabbit looked in earlier, plushier days alongside a recent image of Rabbit, no longer plush nor brown but a dingy, matted gray. An eye was scratched, which Taterz explained caused him to not see well.

“He’s been through the dirt of the botanical gardens, the mud of the bosque, hiking, dinner and so many hugs and kisses,” Couch said. “But he doesn’t do well in the wash.”

On the flyer, Couch included this offer: “If you are not an inherently good person who just wants to restore stability and happiness in a kid’s life, I will pay you in money or gift cards or pretty much whatever you ask for that is legal and within reason. This rabbit means that much!”

The flyers were posted on social media and all over the park. No one could find Rabbit.

But the flyers found something else – inherently good people. Lots of them.

“Mamas who read this will want to immediately jump in their car and go looking,” a woman named Nissa wrote. “Headlights and flashlights into the night if necessary!”

Wrote Leigh-Ann: “It’s hard when our friends go on new adventures that we can’t go on with them. … What I do know is you and Rabbit have shared a love that will set you up well to love others. Chin up, kid, all will work out in the end. If it hasn’t worked out yet, it’s not the end.”

And this from Feliz: “I know how much you love Rabbit. There is a whole community trying to help. I hope you find Rabbit, but either way, I’m glad you had something so special and loved.”

Couch read each of the comments to Taterz.

“I needed her to know that I care what she cares about,” she said. “That others care and are legitimately showing concern and it’s beautiful.”

Just in case, Couch scoured the internet for a bunny backup, finally securing one on eBay. But she knew the new bunny would never completely replace old Rabbit.

“Some things are not replaceable, not disposable, and some things are just things,” she said. “Rabbit was not a thing.”

Two days later, Couch was moving a bean bag chair and Taterz’s toy drum set from the living room window when she spied a small blue bundle under the drapes. Strange, she thought, because she had looked in that exact spot the night Rabbit vanished and nothing was there.

As you can imagine, the reunion between Taterz and Rabbit was a joyous one. Joy also spread across the community of people who had cared enough to try to mend a little girl’s broken heart.

“We’ve all had so much loss and trauma these past couple of years because of the pandemic, and I think this was something that touched others because it was so tangible,” Couch said. “This is the community I want to live in.”

The eBay bunny arrived days after Rabbit’s return. Taterz named her Rose, Rabbit’s sister. To Taterz, they are both real because they are loved. Because they are home. And so is she.

UpFront is a front-page news and opinion column.

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