Sometimes my daughter says the strangest, funniest, most wondrous things:
I had been gone for the past three days to present at an academic conference in West Virginia. But on the first day I was gone, my wife Lisa took our oldest cat, Pooh Bear, in to the vet since he was sick and near death. Sure enough, the vet recommended that he get put down with a peaceful end, and they did. So all of this happened while I was gone on that first day, which was rough for my wife since she’s had him for well over 10 years.
But now we have a four-year-old daughter, Alyssa, and Lisa would have to explain to her why Pooh Bear wasn’t around anymore. How do you explain death to someone who is still too young to understand such a heavy concept? Alyssa stayed with her grandmother for a day before Lisa brought her back home to a house with one less cat that she normally sees. Lisa sat down with Alyssa and tried to tell her that Pooh Bear was away now forever. “He’s dead. He got old and his body couldn’t last any longer.” Alyssa paused with a confused look on her face, and eventually asked, “Will he ever be back?” “No, honey. He’s gone,” Lisa replied gently while trying to hold back the tears and how grief-stricken she also was. “I took him to the vet and they put him down. That’s what happens when we get old. Our bodies die and we pass on.” Alyssa sat silent for a few moments, looked around, and asked a sad, fateful question: “Where’s daddy?”
Talk about confusing. Our old cat Pooh Bear was gone and so was daddy. All these “creatures” in the house were gone, and I got lumped in the same category. “Is daddy coming back?” Did Alyssa think mommy took daddy to the vet as well?!? He’s been gone for several days and hadn’t shown up yet. And he’s kinda “old”. Lisa looked stunned, and then broke out in hysterical laughter.
This story was recounted to me after I got back home late Saturday night, back from the briefly dead.
The photo below was the last picture I took of Pooh Bear one week ago…. Godspeed, Mr. Pooh Bear.
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