Skip to main content

Klaus: Gone But Not Forgotten


Three months ago, we lost our “first born cat”, Klaus, of 15 years. (Good Lord, this hasn’t been a good year for cats at our house.) Explaining his death to our very small children has not been easy, as demonstrated in the following exchanges. My husband and I have taken the straightforward, death-is-death path without referencing an afterlife. Grandma has presented the “higher” path to the girls which leads to heaven, reincarnation, and sometimes even ghosts.

Who said you have to give your kids only one viewpoint?

--------

Me: “Honey, Klaus has died. He’s not at the vet’s or anywhere else. He’s gone and is not coming back.”

Elizabeth: “Well, can I call him on the telephone?”

---------

“If I catch a mouse, I’m going to bring it to Exene or Meg... or I’ll get in my car and drive to heaven and give it to Klaus.”
Ms. Elizabeth

---------

“I miss Klaus. He’s my friend.”
Ms. Samantha

---------

Elizabeth: “Where’s Klaus?”

Grandma: “He’s passed on, but he’ll always be with us. He’s probably here right now, watching us.”

Elizabeth, with scared look in her eyes: “Where?!”

--------

“I think we should have my birthday party in Heaven. Klaus needs us.”
Ms. Elizabeth

--------

Elizabeth: “I want to die, too, so I can be with Klaus.”

Me (shudder, deep breath): “No, you do not want to die. It’s no fun. When you die, that’s it. You can’t play; you can’t eat your favorite foods; you can’t have any more birthday parties or watch your favorite tv shows. There’s no more Elmo and no more Sesame Street. You can’t run or jump or go down a slide. You can’t do anything.”

Elizabeth: “So you just sit there?”

Me: “Yea...basically.”




Previous Comments
 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Just Call Me Ruby

Despite recent evidence to the contrary, it's no secret -- I don't like to exercise. Especially exercise for the sake of exercise... pushups in order to do more and better pushups, etc. To inspire me properly, everything must have purpose . It must be practical. This is why I stopped taking kung fu a few years ago (well, that and it's not easy to execute a perfect roundhouse kick when you're pregnant.) After 2-3 years of working hard to become a great fighter (not that I ever became one), I asked myself, What am I fighting against? I'm not going to join the Army. I don't live in a bad neighborhood. Yet, I'm spending hours and hours of my time learning how to poke some phantom menace in the ojos (that's eyes for those of you who aren't vicariously learning Spanish through your 1st grader). Enough was enough. It just wasn't practical anymore. And thus began the steady process of me falling out of shape. I knew I was in physical decline. T...

Score One for the Bad Guys

Apparently, Lizzy and Samantha have a soft spot in their hearts for the bad guys. After all, in their world the bad guys always get shot, beaten, or killed by super heroes, they always land in jail, and they’re never attractive. So when I heard strange phrases in hushed tones coming from the toy room the other day, phrases like, take off his clothes ... and hand me that bug ... and, put that on his vagina , I had to ask: What is going on in there?! After some debate between the two of them (n o, don’t tell mommy ... it’s OK, just don’t tell daddy ... and so on) they finally fessed up that they were playing a game with Barbies and other creatures wherein the bad guys win. Here’s how it works: In this game, the bad guys torture the good guys by making them take off all their clothes and then placing mind-controlling bugs on their vaginas . The bugs contain a virus that infects their hosts, thus enabling the bad guys to control the actions and behaviors of the good guys. Ergo, the b...

Adult Beginning Gymnastics Revealed

The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself. Well...yes and no . Sometimes what we fear turns out to be OK -- in fact, it turns out to be pretty damned fun. The squadron of peppy cheerleaders turns out to be an extremely quiet guy named Ron and a nice girl named Alison who looks like Hayley Mills (but doesn't know who Hayley Mills is). The gymnastics instructor turns out to be a nice young girl woman who is easy to talk to. And I turn out to be considerably less decrepit than originally feared. Of the three students (!), I'm definitely the oldest by more than a decade. However, I was surprised (and thrilled) to see how evenly matched we were. Where one student is flexible, the other is strong. What I lack in youth, I make up for in pointy toes and perky presentation. While I'm certainly not as fit as the other students, I am not miles behind in skill. (Maybe just a few blocks away.) The first class was primarily an assessment of our current capabilities, so we c...