This past week, on the same day actually, someone adopted our dog and we had to have our cat put to sleep. It was a very rough day! Though it was hard to say goodbye to the dog, it really was a blessing for both us and our dog. My son was pretty sad about it at first but seems to understand why we had to send him to another home.
The death of the cat is another issue. He seems, at times, much less upset about the cat. I don't think that it is because he loved the dog more than the cat, but because death must seem like such a vague idea to kids and they don't grasp the finality of it.
This really was my son's first experience with death. At dinner that night, we decided to tell him about the cat. Anthony explained that the cat was sick. Then he said, "We had to have her put to sleep, she isn't going to wake up...she died". I quick shot Anthony a glance and told him not to say that we "put her to sleep" for fear that he might be afraid that if he goes to sleep he will die. Hmmm...perhaps we didn't prepare for this very well. Maybe we should have talked about what we were going to say before hand.
So we basically told him that the cat was sick, and we took her to the vet (an animal doctor), and that there wasn't anything they could do for her, so she died. We didn't get much of a reaction out of him; again, probably because he doesn't really understand it.
We have had to explain it to him again and again. Just yesterday my son was talking Anthony about it.
He said, "Cocoa (our cat) died."
Anthony said, "Yes, Cocoa died."
My son - "Why?"
Anthony - "Because she got sick and we couldn't make her better."
My son - "But I don't want Cocoa to die."
Seeing him hurting makes my heart ache for him. Unfortunately, death is a fact of life...
Sincerely,
The Former Owner of a Zoo!
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