Helping Kids Say Goodbye

What a difficult day today.   I have decided that its time to put our 16 1/2 year old cat down.  Whew..what a hard sentence to actually type.  Thinking that it will need to happen someday and knowing it has to be done soon are such different concepts that its difficult to comprehend.

Unfortunately, making the decision isn't the most difficult part of the process.  Its preparing my little Ladybug.  Mr. Dino-man will take it hard, he will cry, he will be sad and he will move on...this is a situation where Aspergers helps.  My Ladybug however is a completely different story...it will turn her world upside down for a good while to come.   We had our dog put down about 4 1/2 years ago and she will still get sad at the sound of his name, make room for him in her bed (even though he never slept with her) and talk to him when she is sad.   Yup, she is gonna take Shyan passing very hard.

We have, of course, had conversations.  We have discussed that Shyan is really old, how happy we are that he has lived a long and happy life and that we got to spend it with him.  But when it comes right down to it, none of that will help ease her pain at losing a friend that she has had since birth.

Several months ago she started asking me about how I knew when Yukon would die.   Of course this threw me off guard, and I explained that he ha been sick.  She reminded me that Grandma and Grandpa took them for ice cream and when they came home Yukon was dead.  I tried to play it off as it being a weird coincidence...but she was too smart for that and pointed out to me that they also took her cousins out for ice cream...and they came home to find out that their dog was dead too.  Smart kid...there are days (like that one) when I wished she wasn't so good at putting two and two together.

So I explained to her what happened with Yukon and why.  We talked about how when you are a pet owner, difficult decisions often need to be made.  We talked about what happened to Yukon (that he got a shot and went to sleep and then they gave him another shot to stop his heart, but that he didn't feel anything) we talked about the fact that even though Yukon is buried at our old house, it isn't where his body is, its where his memory is that counts.

She made me promise that when it was time for Shyan to be put down that I would let her say goodbye...and I will.

My Old Man Cat