Ashes in Our Hands
She was a tiny dwarf bunny named Misu. She arrived on an ordinary morning and hopped into a life — and a heart — that would never quite be the same. She stayed for precious months. She left far too soon. This is the story of what she taught, what she left behind, and the long, honest path of healing that followed.
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This is a work of nonfiction based on the author's real-life experiences. The time spent with Misu was real. The grief was real. The garden, the Baobab and the slow path of healing — all real. Misu's story is not fiction. It is a true chapter from a life still learning to hold both sorrow and gratitude with open hands.
About the book
Misu was a tiny dwarf bunny — soft white and black fur, a nose that twitched at every leaf, and a heart no larger than a thimble. She arrived quietly and changed everything. When illness took her far too soon, the silence she left behind opened something deeper than grief.
Ashes in Our Hands is an intimate memoir about love, loss and the fragility of all living things. Through Misu's brief life, a young Baobab bonsai growing patiently in the garden, and the slow turning of seasons, DuGallan explores what it means to live fully in a world that is constantly slipping through our fingers.
It is not a lament. It is a search for meaning — and a tender companion for anyone who has ever loved a small creature fiercely and been changed forever by both the joy and the ache of letting go.
What's inside
Misu arrived as a tiny dwarf bunny — barely a handful of white and black fur — and within weeks had become part of the rhythm of the house. Ashes in Our Hands follows that short life closely: the small habits, the particular kind of attention a very small creature demands, and the way a household reorganises itself, almost without noticing, around someone new.
When illness took Misu far sooner than anyone expected, the book doesn't look away from what that silence felt like. Instead it sits with it — alongside a young Baobab bonsai growing slowly in the garden, a tree that measures time in decades rather than days, and becomes a quiet counterpoint to a life that ended too soon.
Across the chapters, the turning of the seasons becomes its own kind of narrator — each one a reminder that endings and beginnings are never as separate as they feel. By the close of the book, grief and gratitude sit side by side, neither one cancelling out the other.
Who is this book for?
Ashes in Our Hands is a short standalone memoir for adult readers — anyone who has loved a small animal fiercely and felt the particular size of the silence afterwards. It stands apart from the Hughes Chronicles' family adventure format; there are no clues to follow here, just an honest, gentle account of loss and what comes after. Readers who have found comfort in DuGallan's other writing, or who are simply looking for a brief, tender book to sit with during a hard season, will find a companion in these pages.
A standalone companion from DuGallan Publishing — explore the Hughes Chronicles series →