When Death & Children Come Face to Face

(written 09/23/03)

Children never cease to amaze me. Sure, they can be bratty and out of control, and they can be childish and carefree, but sometimes they have these moments that cause me to look at them and see the little adult inside. There are times when children are so strong and compassionate, and mature beyond their years...I grew up an only child, but I have twin ten year-old younger brothers now (at my ripe old age of 20!), and watching them grow up has been a joy.

We had a tragedy this past weekend; our year-old Cairn Terrier Nasdaq (both of my parents are stock brokers) was killed by a wild animal. Now, I'm sure most people have experienced death in some form, and lost pets; I certainly have. But how many of us have seen a child lose a pet? It is the most heart-wrenching thing I have ever experienced.

My boyfriend and I rushed to my mother's house Friday night, to see how the children were faring. Joey, the younger twin (by a whole minute) was doing alright; he loved Nazzy, but was keeping it together pretty well. We told him it was okay to cry and he responded with, "Yeah, but I don't HAVE to, do I?" Adam (the older twin), on the other hand, was oddly quiet. I hugged him and asked him how he was doing. He just looked at me with those huge blue eyes of his and said, "Sissy, do you know what happened?" I told him I did, that Mom had called me earlier to tell me, and he said quietly, "Nazzy's gone. My best friend is gone."

Adam and Nazzy had been inseperable. When she ran down the driveway (which, by the way, is a very long driveway that angles down a mountain), Adam was the one to walk down the hill to get her. When she rolled in the dirt after her bath, Adam reprimanded her and bathed her again. When Nazzy climbed underneath the cars to get at snakes and squirrels, Adam made sure he got all the black oil and grease off of her blonde fur. I was surprised that he seemed so calm, that he wasn't shedding a single tear. I hoped, though, that it meant he was recovering from the shock and would soon be his cheerful, frenetically energetic self again.

That night we held the burial. There was no body, but Adam had found a rock with some blood on it; it was horridly morbid, but the child obsessed over having something of Nazzy to bury. He asked me to help him make a cross, and with some matchsticks, crazy glue and blue ribbon fashioned a rather nice one. One by one we filed outside: my mother, my stepfather, my boyfriend, myself, and little Adam and Joey. As we gathered around, I heard Adam whisper, "Thank you, Sissy, for making me such a nice cross." My heart broke right then and there as I watched him bury the little rock and wedge the cross down in the dirt with tears rolling down his face.

Who was to give the eulogy? As Adam sobbed over his makeshift grave, we all found that lumps had lodged hard in our throats. Mom harshly exclaimed under her breath, "Someone say something!" Then, a little voice spoke up. "I'll do it, Mom." We all turned to look at Joey, standing tall and dry-eyed, who then said, "Nazzy was our hero, and our friend, and we love her. She will watch over us always. Amen." Tears poured down all our faces then, not just for the loss of the dog but for what we had witnessed: the compassion and understanding of but a small child, and the need to make it right, from one brother to another.

Who knows when children will have those moments? Who knows when even the most harsh of individuals will be changed for the better because of a child? Adam was bent on catching what killed his precious dog, and who knew that my stepdad, a harsh and sometimes cold dictator in the household, would sit for the rest of the night in the bushes at the bottom of the driveway with a pile of chicken nuggets because it was comforting to a little boy?