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Ducky is at the Rainbow Bridge now.Dec 30 '01 (Updated Aug 26 '04) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Be gentle, but be honest. ~ Choose your words wisely.
There is a lovely story out there on the vast Internet that might help you as it helped us when it came time to tell a little boy that his beloved friend Ducky, our kitty who absolutely loved the children, had gone to wait for us near the gates of Heaven. I don't want to post the entire Rainbow Bridge story here, but you can find it and many other nice related items at www.petloss.com Our precious Ducky died just a few days before Christmas in 1999. I was an absolute wreck. She had been my first pet since I'd been on my own, and I didn't know how I could hold it together for the kids. Luckily the excitement of the holidays kept their minds busy, and they didn't ask about her right away. I was able to wait until the week after Christmas, when things had settled down a bit, to tell my children (ages 2 and 4-1/2) about our missing Ducky. First, I sat them down and told them I had a very special story to tell them, and I read to them about the Rainbow Bridge. To sum up, it is a lovely short story about a wonderful place free from pain and suffering just this side of Heaven, where pets that have died wait for their loved people so they can enter Heaven together. After the story, and when I was sure my older child had paid attention, I told him as calmly as I could, ''Ducky is at the Rainbow Bridge now.'' It didn't take him an instant to figure out what that meant, and he cried hard for a half hour. I wasn't prepared for that -- it was so difficult to be strong. But I held him and reassured him that we would see her again someday, and answered his ''Why'' after ''Why'' as best I could. Finally he was able to talk and was willing to accept that even though we didn't want her to go, it was her time, and we'd miss her but we'd see her again. One thing I read about afterward, it is very important when you tell a young child that a pet has died that you don't tell them it was put to sleep -- they don't understand euthanasia and may become afraid of dying in their sleep! (or of you dying in your sleep, etc.) Instead, try saying something like ''the vet helped her by making the pain stop'' (again, it might be better if you don't tell them the vet gave the pet a shot) Now that the pain isn't so sharp, we talk a little bit now and then about our Ducky, and ways we can remember her. Just be prepared for an unexpected response from a child -- the girl you thought would fall apart in grief might seem totally indifferent, the boy you thought would just ask you 1001 questions might cry his eyes out. Let them work it out in their own way, but make sure they know you are available if they want to talk. ~~~ (Following is an additional editorial I wrote about Ducky for another section that is no longer taking new reviews.) ~~~ A Boy and His Ducky I didn't name our cat. Ducky (from the obnoxious chatty duckbill dino in The Land Before Time movie) had that goofy name when I got her. In 1990, I was not thinking of how a cat would get along with my future children or even about finding someone and getting married. During some of the loneliest times in my life, Ducky was my nightly companion and daily entertainment. You would be amazed at how long a bobber trailed across the floor in circles on a fishing pole and line can amuse a cat. Watching the blur of black and white fur race in circles nonstop often brought tear-causing fits of laughter to my day. But, this editorial isn't about her evening race down the hallway and back, tha-thump tha-thump tha-thump SMACK as she bounced off the end of the couch and nightstand in turn as she made her mad relay. Or about the time a black and white cat thought she could hide from a running bucking Mustang in green grass and got her tail stepped on and broken. Twice. This is about the unexpected bond between a small boy and a creature often thought of as anti-social, independent, aloof and even dangerous. My son arrived home in March 1995. Ducky sought me out at bedtime and found me on the fold-out bed in the living room. As she hopped up to find a good warm spot to curl up next to me, she found that someone else had taken HER favorite spot!! With a disgusted look she sniffed at the intruder, and after being scooted a few times from a small warm nook between the baby and me, settled for a cozy place behind my bended knees. The horror. She'd been replaced. I'd had some concern about her reaction to the newcomer. Cats are vindictive. Surely she would find a way to get back at me for this infraction on her lifestyle. Nature has strong and unexpected ways of showing the truest side of a creature. It was less than a week since the intruder had displaced her, and Ducky looked on suspiciously as the squirming babe was prepared for a sponge bath on the floor in the nursery. It was the unsettling cries of discomfort from the child that stirred the maternal instinct in the female feline, spayed shortly after her first unplanned litter. She moved in and ignored me as I tried to calm the scared, mad, wet infant who was demanding to be held. I watched the cat's alarm turn to resolve as she prepared to pick up the helpless baby and carry him off to a nice warm nest somewhere. Although I was at first startled and mortified to see my cherished cat's mouth open wide just inches from my newborn's scalp, I recognized with surprise what her intention was just before I was about to send her flying across the room. There was no malicious intent to bite or scar my son. Ducky had merely tried to act on her impulse to protect him and with mouth gaping, realized there wasn't going to be a fuzzy fold of loose neck skin to gently carry this babe away from harm. Puzzled, she backed off a step and surveyed the situation, and made one more attempt with jaws agape to find a handle on this nearly bald, huge shrieking 'kitten'. She was finally satisfied when I picked him up and the cries ceased, and I stroked her fur and told her it was okay, I wasn't hurting him. A toddler and a cat naturally have some squabbles, but my dear Ducky didn't harm a hair on my child's head (or anywhere else) until he was four years old and she was in pain, dying although we didn't know it. When she tried to bite and scratch at him is when I knew something was horribly wrong with her, and her last few days were spent in the vet's office. It was a day before Christmas Eve when I had to let her go, and somehow hide my grief and her sudden disappearance from two young children until after the holidays. ~~~ Finally, be gentle, but be honest. If Spot didn't really "run away" don't tell the kids he did, to avoid having to talk about death. (I still have issues from hearing that my dog "ran away from home" when I was little. I thought not even my own dog liked me!)  |
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