me: death is a part of life. charlotte is gone. like roo died and is not here any more [cue lump in my throat].
bear: will horatio* die?
me: yeah, he will. everything living dies. people, cats, dogs, flowers, trees.
bear: when will everyone die?
me: i don’t know. it’s different for everyone.
bear: trees die? when they fall down?
me: yup.
bear: we have to be inside so they don’t fall on us.
*horatio is a bulldog belonging to someone else in the family.
this was the discussion that bear and i had after he finished watching “charlotte’s web”. such a classic, such a tear jerker. bear yelled at one point “charlotte died äiti” so i came running in and watched the last minutes of the movie with tears streaming down my face. our conversation made me feel inadequate to answer questions about these important life events. finding the age appropriate language and context is hard.
 |
| roo is deeply missed [cue lump in throat]. |
One of the best things I ever heard from one of my professors (because it was embarrassingly honest) was a story (outside of class) of her waking up in bed one night after dreaming her 10 year-old son’s bearded dragon had died. She went to his room, saw the lizard lifeless, and woke her son up to break the news. They both cried for awhile, before eventually the lizard moved and they realized it had just been very still. Her son asked her why she had done this to him and went back to bed.