On death

Last Tuesday, our family experienced a loss that turned out to be far more tragic than I expected. I found our cat Samantha lying lifeless on the family room floor. I was so completely freaked out that I couldn't even get close enough to touch her. So I watched from around the corner and made sure that I couldn't detect the rise and fall of her breath. When I was sure that she was not alive, I called John. I am so glad that he was working the right rotation and having a slow day, and that he was willing to race home to my rescue. He put our beloved kitty in a box and hid her so that he could go back to work and we could deal with it later.

Katelyn was beside herself when we told her. She cried and cried. She could think of nothing else the rest of the evening, as we waited for everyone to get home so that we could have a funeral. Both Katelyn and Carter were morbidly fascinated with seeing Sammy's body. And here's where I felt completely lost as a parent. How do I teach my children about death and help them to deal with it in a healthy way? What is appropriate and what's not? We had decided to bury Sammy in a remote corner of our yard, and not in a box, so John lifted her into the hole he had dug and the children had the opportunity they so desired to see her one more time. Was that the right thing to do? I'm really not sure. I hope they're not scarred for life by the image of their lifeless cat in a hole in the ground.

We all said something about Sammy and then put dirt on her grave. And this is when it hit Tanner. The timing couldn't have been worse - it was exactly one week before the anniversary of his mother's death. He has been dealing with the resurfacing of his grief since mother's day, and this just brought it all to the forefront again. There was much sobbing as we buried our kitty, and the kids' grief made me more sad than my own grief ever could have.

We were all sad that night, but we were OK. So I was surprised when Katelyn woke up the next morning and started crying almost immediately. In fact, she cried for at least an hour straight. And as soon as I'd get her calmed down, she'd start crying again. We had a lot of talks. I explained over and over about how Sammy's spirit is in heaven, and that it's just her body left here in the hole in our yard. She said a couple of times that she wanted to be dead, too, so that she could be in heaven with Sammy. It just about broke my heart. Carter got pretty sick of the weeping and wailing. He started telling her, "Sammy's dead. You don't want a dead cat!" Obviously, he's not quite grasping the situation. He had some other strange things to say about the whole thing. He's even said when he got mad at our other cat that he wishes it were dead with Sammy. Some issues to sort through eventually, I'm sure...

As Katie's grief subsided, she showed some signs of understanding. One morning at breakfast, she told me, "I think Jesus is making paper balls for Sammy in heaven and throwing them so that she can catch them. I think He's playing with her and taking care of her for us." I thought that was the sweetest thing.

As for Tanner, the one year mark has come and gone. I took the kids to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house on that day, in addition to an extra grief counseling session. It was good to have things to do to keep us busy, and the temple was a positive experience (minus the inevitable meltdown by Carter, which, luckily, didn't happen until the very end). He even talked to me in the car on the way home and I didn't feel like he was trying to pull away or distance himself from me, which I feel quite often. I am still so sad that he had to lose his mother so early in his life. One of my least favorite phrases is, "It's not fair." It's pretty much outlawed in our house. But I find myself thinking all the time that IT'S NOT FAIR! I don't want him to have to hurt. I still wish for his sake that we could turn back time and undo it. But we can't. And now we'll all be dealing with death for the rest of our lives. I guess I'll be figuring it out as we go.