Causing Death

I have been feeling blue this week. For some unknown reason. On Monday, I picked the kids up from school and asked about their day, what they had for homework, what they ate for lunch. I interrogate them pretty much. My 3rd grader said, "I have to study my vocabulary words." "Tell me what words you have." She thought for a moment, "Fatal. F-A-T-A-L. Causing death." I was taken aback when she said it. She said it in a very Children-of-the-Corn type of manner. Causing death....how depressing. Next week perhaps the vocab words will be funeral, melancholy and traumatic brain injury.

On Wednesday I had Anatomy class and the professor used to be a nurse in the hospital and this class is pretty much an hour and a half of horrible things that can happen to X part of the body. The 24 year old who became a paraplegic after diving in shallow water, the 16 year old who died in a car accident when her "cranial cavity" was smashed, the person with bed sores down to the bone. Definitely did not lighten my mood.

I got home and later that evening my dad came over all sullen and dejected looking. He sat down and said, "I had to put Baby Cat down." My dad's cat had this tumor in this throat that was growing and blocking his airway. It was time. The sad thing is that his dog was put down just a few months ago. Molly was ancient but she was a good dog. My dad pretty much lost 1/2 his household in 3 months. I feel so bad for him. He should just move in with us so we can hang out and be awesome together. The kids were asleep so my husband and I decided that we would tell them in the morning. We live 1/2 a mile from my dad so my kids spend a lot of time with the animals. They are like our animals too.

In the morning we sat down together to eat breakfast and we told the kids about Baby cat. My 6 year old cried. My 8 year old said, "What is this? The year of death?" I shot her a very ominous look. She rolled her eyes at me. "I mean for animals." She asked me what happened. Never being the one to pass up a good learning opportunity I said, "His tumor was fatal." She gave me a dirty look. "This is NOT a good time for spelling words." Bad mom award. We hugged and it was okay.

In the car my 6 year old said, "I am not sad for Baby cat." I said, "Why is that?" "Because he is in heaven with Molly and now Molly will not be lonely and will have someone to play with." So sweet.

I want my kids to always see the silver lining. To remember that life goes on. We count our blessings everyday and do our best not to take each other for granted. Life is much to short.