The day our son learned about death

Recently we had a family cat cross over the rainbow bridge.  Ripley was an older cat, had some sudden health issues and died.  One of the first thoughts I had afterwards was how do we tell our oldest son that one of the cats died?  He’s always been close with the animals, all of whom are older, and teaching him about death isn’t something that I had given any thought to. So how do you teach young children about death?

I know, teaching young children about the death of a family pet is a first world problem.  But for those families that have pets they are part of the family too.   In some families they’re a bigger part than others, but they are a part.

The morning after Ripley died our oldest son didn’t say anything.    When he wakes up he always runs downstairs to let the dogs go pee outside and opens the laundry door to let the cats roam about the house.  He sees the animals and greets them every day, but he didn’t notice Ripley was gone.

We were outside one afternoon and he was swinging with his belly on the swing set going back and forth.  One time he moved forward too much and fell on the ground head first.  After he brushed himself off he said, “I almost die like the leaves and dinosaurs”.  That is great; if we can keep the talk of death isolated to leaves and dinosaurs then my job of teaching you about the frailty of life is on schedule.  Cue the Hallmark movie soundtrack….now.

However, the other day at breakfast, about two months since Ripley died, he said, “where’s the white kitty “?  There is a communal white cat that we see on our walks, so I was clever and said, ‘oh, we’ll see the white kitty this morning on our walk’.

“No, I mean the white kitty in our house”, he said.

“Oh, Ripley, she’s gone”, I said.

“We need to go outside and get her”, he said

Our cats always stay inside, so the fact that he was concerned about finding her warmed my heart, but distracted me from the conversation at hand.

“No, I mean she’s gone, she not coming back buddy”.

“Why”

“Well, she was very sick and she died”.

It would’ve been great if he had said, ‘like the leaves and dinosaurs’, but instead he continued eating breakfast, as if he immediately forgot.  Cue the Hallmark movie music for good parenting lessons on teaching children about death…..now.

I shared our conversation with my wife when she told me about an exchange the two of them had.   They them were in the car and he was goofing around in his car seat.  He said that he wanted to crawl around the car.   Of course, she said something like “no you might hurt yourself or bump your head”.

He responded, “like my kitty”.    At that time my wife didn’t know that he brought up Ripley recently.  Obviously, once the two of us spoke and compared notes we were both touched.

I handled it correctly in the timing of everything.  If he would’ve asked me that morning after she died what happened I would’ve explained it the same way.    I would’ve emphasized that it wasn’t his fault, she had a great life and that the veterinarian did everything that they could for her.

He hasn’t asked about Ripley since then.  It’s been a couple of weeks and I still wonder how his little mind processes the temporary and the permanent.  He still lets the dogs outside in the morning to go to the bathroom.  And we encourage him to say hello to the cat and dogs whenever he passes them.  On the way home today he was waving.  I asked him who he was waving to and he said a white kitty.  Cute the Hallmark movie soundtrack……… now