I’ve always said I’d like to write a book, but instead of writing chapters, I seem to write titles. There are a lot of book ideas floating about in my mind; I just need to organize them under the right title from my collection.
Such a title is “Help, There’s a Dead Cat in My Freezer,” a book bound to catch someone’s eye.
“A collection of witty and humorous anecdotes about rearing children in a rural setting” is how I imagine the blurb on the cover, with some clever drawing to entice the reader further. The title came to mind following our experiences with the unexpected death of a beloved family pet.
The importance that pets have in young children’s lives cannot be over-emphasized. In addition to all the good chances for children to learn caring and compassion, pet deaths afford opportunities to learn about grief, recovery and the customs surrounding the loss of family and friends.
Many families have funerals for pets. The preparation of the pet for burial, using a special box or cover, is part of the process of grieving. Funerals for pets, with graves, ceremony and prayer, also offer children experiences in preparation for human loss that comes to us all, a rehearsal or reliving of painful emotions which will help in understanding and managing such feelings.
I fondly remember a special minister who called at our home just as we were beginning the “services” for our pet. When asked by our son, “Will you say a prayer for Belle?” he did not hesitate. In so doing, he supported and valued the children’s feelings and helped us all through a difficult day…just as ministers and family do in human death.
To get back to the title of my book, why was there a dead cat — and was there really a dead cat — in my freezer? Pets die at inconvenient times and funerals, though important, are difficult to manage before school; kids crying over loss just don’t do well in school.
So, upon discovering the already-stiff remains of our kitten, I quickly slipped the body into a large trash bag, carefully labeled it “DEAD CAT” and popped it into the freezer. Cleverly, I thought, I’d remove the evidence from the early morning scene and bring forth the body that afternoon to be discovered and buried appropriately.
Amazingly, it worked. I was driven to remember that cat by thoughts of what not remembering could lead to, like sometime defrosting what I believed to be hamburger for dinner and finding dead cat. We discovered the kitten that afternoon and spent time planning and carrying out a splendid funeral.
Dead cats in freezers, pet mice buried in kitchen match boxes, gerbils given gravestones, are all part of the efforts many adults most of all need to help young children make sense of what is happening and to allow children ways of expressing grief, anger and pain through participating in some meaningful way.
The importance of seeing everything in our lives as opportunities for learning and growth cannot be over-emphasized.
