Grave digging is grim work.
We lost eight baby bunnies and Hotdog the cat today. Plus the last of our incubated eggs (14 of them never even started to grow) also had to be removed from life support. For some reason it never hatched, but it was a chick in there. So we have exactly one new baby rooster, currently cheeping madly from the kitchen counter.
Hotdog was Jeremy's cat, the shy one I tamed out of the rafters. He loved me best. I think he got hit by a car. I took Jeremy through the steps of it all with me so he would "understand" what happened and not ask me a thousand times where's my cat? So first I had to go across the road to get the cat. Then Jeremy thought I was crying because the cat scratched me (and it looked like he could have as rigor mortis set in and his claws were all popped out and sticking straight up from the box I was carrying him in.) Then he thought Hotdog was sleeping. Then he thought we were putting Hotdog in the dirt to be funny, like sand over someone at the beach. The whole time I am explaining, "Hotdog isn't coming back. he's up in heaven with God. A car hit him and he died. His body is here but his soul and Hotdogness are up with God. We need to say goodbye to him. We need to pray that God will watch over him."
So we did all of that together and he worked hard shoveling dirt, but when we went to cover the cat's face he didn't like that. Didn't think Hotdog would like that. So I started all over, explaining how Hotdog couldn't feel it, he was gone to heaven, it was ok, we had to bury him and say goodbye.
When Bob got home, I wanted to see what Jeremy understood about what happened so I told him to tell daddy the sad news...
He tucked his head to the side, looked down and said in a sad voice:
"Hotdog went to Texas to visit his grandfather...."
Death is a challenging thing to explain to a 2-year-old, no? Kind of like explaining the virgin birth or the ressurection to a 4-year-old. I don't fully understand it all myself. So that, thank God, is where faith takes over.
-- Meg Ferrante (from my journal, Spring 2008)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Death is so hard to explain and at the same time you hope they don't fully comprehend what it means.
Ethan (10 years old!) now thinks that Heaven is a planet you go to when your body stops working. Right now your body is holding you to the Earth but your soul will be able to get to Heaven after it leaves your body b/c it will be attracted by Heaven's special gravity. Yeah. I don't think I got the message across very well 7 years ago when my Grandmother passed. Hmm.
Wait a second... his explanation is quite poetic. I rather like it! Maybe they get it more than we think? What if heaven IS like going to Texas to visit your grandfather? (GOD HELP US! :)
Oh, sweet Jeremy! I remember you telling us about this rough patch of animal deaths. We have had a rough year this year... our beagle was put down this summer and Scott found Hannah the cat dead one Sunday morning last month. It is rough!
Post a Comment