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Ask your child to
help with any funeral or burial service; for
example choosing a blanket or a tee-shirt (may be
an old one belonging to the child) to wrap the cat
in or a cat toy to be buried or cremated with it.
Children don't understand that their cat can't
feel anything and may worry that he will be cold
under the ground; you might say that he will be
warm wrapped in a towel. If you choose a burial
service or cremation, your child can help to
choose a coffin (casket) or an urn. I have known
older children put great store by the fact that
they helped mum or dad make the coffin - anything
from decorating a cardboard box, to helping with
real woodwork.
If you have a
service, ask the minister for one that celebrates
life rather than being at all morbid. If you
choose hymns or songs, your child can choose a favorite
even if it adults may think their choice
is not the most suitable for a dignified occasion
- you probably already have ways of coping with
death, you are trying to reassure your child. If
your child is involved in after-death
arrangements, it may help in their understanding
that death is natural and permanent.
If you are
religious you may say that God cares for animals
too and that your child will meet his pet in
heaven one day (this can neither be proved no
disproved and is therefore, not technically a
lie). Many religions believe in reincarnation or
that animals have souls, albeit simpler ones than
humans and since animals cannot commit sins, they
are assured of a heavenly place. Some
spiritualists consider that animals have a species
communal soul and that pets develop individual
souls because they come to understand that they
are distinct individuals.
If you are not
religious you may say that older animals die to
make room for baby animals and so that everything
can grow and renew itself. As a young child, all
my goldfish were buried beneath certain trees
because they "helped" the tree to grow
strong and tall. I came to feel that my pets lived
on as part of the trees.
As an adult, I can look
out on an especially vivid patch of my lawn which
is exactly the same size and shape (a sort of
comma shape) as the elderly cat I buried last
year. For one year at least I have a visible
living memorial of my cat and her contribution to
the continuity of life.
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