THIS POST AND THE FOLLOWING 2 POSTS TOOK PLACE OVER AN 8 DAY PERIOD. I POSTED THEM IN THE ORDER OF EVENTS:
This past weekend Baby Dumpling's cat, Kate, had an accident with the garage door. Although the sensors work to stop the door from closing, which I test regularly, it apparently wasn't good enough to prevent the accident.
When my wife and I arrived home Baby Dumpling called out to my wife, "mommy my cat is hurt." My wife ran over to investigate, she looked up at me with a horrified look then darted into the house screaming. When I got over there to look, knowing that what I will find would not be good, Baby Dumpling told me that Kate was hurt, then she petted the cat and said, "it's o.k. Kate you'll feel better."
We proceeded to take care of things while questioning how do we explain death to a two and half year old especially when it's her cat that died. My wife tried to tell Baby Dumpling that Kate is going away and we have to say goodbye. So they put flowers and at the time Baby Dumpling seemed to be dealing with it better than her parents. That night we didn't speak about it much just waited to see if there were going to be any questions, which there weren't.
Yesterday went fairly well, my wife and I both get a bad feeling every time we go near, open or close the garage door but we are recovering. Baby Dumpling again seemed to be doing better than her parents until prayer time last night. We usually say bless mommy, daddy, Baby Dumpling, Nini, the dog and Kate, keep everyone safe, bless all the animals in the world and take care of them and help all the people in the world to have food, Amen. Last night there was an interruption. Baby Dumpling wanted to know where Kate was and she demanded to see Kate. My wife and I tried to explain that the day before we had to say goodbye to Kate and we put flowers because she wasn't going to come back. We are trying very hard to handle this as to not put the fear if someone gets hurt they won't come back or if you sleep you'll disappear or die. I feel this topic needs to be handled delicately until Baby Dumpling gets old enough to understand this concept. As new parent I'm not too sure how to handle this situation, perhaps getting another cat would be the best thing to do, so the transference/healing process can occur. Maybe just letting it go and answer Baby Dumpling's questions the best I can about why she can't see Kate anymore might be a way. The biggest problem is Baby Dumpling has a very good memory, so her forgetting is not likely to happen anytime soon.
I was starting to wonder why I still call my blog Poppa2b because, I thought, I was a Poppa already but in this situation I realize that I'm not yet a Poppa more like a, "Poppa in training" and someday I'll be a Poppa.
