Dispatches from Nowhere 01.10.06

How do you explain death to a not quite four year old?

It's harder than you might think.

He told Steph when he woke up that he saw Tika last night. He and Steph talked about it again while I was in the shower. When I got out, he told me that he saw Tika at Hannah's Birthday party, in her room, where she always was. I told him she wasn't coming back, no matter how much we might want her to, she can't.

He told me that she will come back "on the one hundred day!" He was adamant about that.

I don't want to sound like I am upset about this; I just don't know what to do. What's that line from The Crow?

"Childhood is over the moment you know you are going to die."

I don't want that yet, but it think it is a cop-out to tell your kids that "She had to go live on a farm" or some other shit like that. I'd hate it if it was done to me and I think it's a crap way of dealing with death. I don't look forward to explaining the death of my grandparents to him, or the weird and elaborate death rituals we have evolved. (Come on - Dead guy in a box for us to all come and stare at?)

I know I should look for the humor in this. (Shauna will get this: EBOLA) It is a weird line, I don't want to give him nightmares, (and we have had to tell him we are not leaving in the middle of the night, and we will be there when he wakes up.) but .. fuck I don't know. I want him to understand that this is natural and normal, but it hurts like hell when he tells me he saw her.

I know, I'm carrying on about a dog, but really it is more than that. Tika is/ was his first experience with death and she just disappeared in the middle of the night. There are no red carpets and white walls for him. (long story)

In an even larger context, our society's pre-occupation with youth and how we shunt the aged off to homes and let other people deal with the messy parts, I don't know how to not make him neurotic about this. Christ, I'm sort of neurotic about it and I've buried at least one friend and grandparent (In-law). I don't want to shuffle death off to some corner where we can ignore it. I want (for him as well as myself) to be able to face death is a humane way. I'm already mildly anti-hospital (I don't go into them if I can help it) and I don't need to pass that little "trait" on. My children can develop their own anxieties without any help from me. I know. She was a dog. (Fuck you, she was my dog.) Take her out of the equation and replace her with a grandparent or a parent. That's what I am thinking about.

For the record, I do not think that ignoring it while blaming "American attitudes and ideas about death" is healthy or appropriate. However, not being from another culture that handles death in a different way, I am fully unprepared to answer the question of "What do I do then? How am I supposed to deal with this?" You know, I'm half Irish, my joking answer used to be "Drink. Drink heavily" and now that I seriously think about it, I don't know. Same way I do anything I guess. I'll muddle through.

Maybe I should just crack a joke or two and make with the funny. I mean - there has got to be something funny in all of this (Other than my friend offering to National Lampoon's Vacation my remaining dog.) I'm just trying to decide if the funny was when she broke my mother in law's finger(s). (Oh, that black humor. It'll be the death of me.)

See, there is something funny in there. I might be making an observation of the nature of comedy there as opposed to the nature of death. I leave that for you to decide. I apologize for being so disjointed; my mind is sort of all over the place at the moment.

Also, can we stop looking at other dogs and stuff? I'm just not there yet.