I lost a kit named Jubilee several years ago to a rare disease, juvenile
lymphoma.  Hideous thing.  Sean was about eight years old (give or take
a year, I don't remember).  He saw my little girl sleeping more and more
over the course of a couple days.  But even though it was pointed out to
him, he didn't get it.  He saw the ferrets upset and trying to wake up
her by dragging her around, he didn't get it.  He saw her collapsed and
gasping, he didn't get it.  He saw us crying and talking about her
"dying" ... but, he didn't get it.
 
Now, he did, mind you, get very upset.  He even cried with us a little.
But he had no idea "why" he and everyone was so upset.  I think he began
to understand that she felt sick at the very end, just like people do.
But that was as far as it got.
 
In the end, I had to rush her into the vet as she gasped for air.  I had
no sitter.  I had to take Sean along.  And as it turned out, this was a
true blessing.  Sean held my ferret along the way, and "felt" her
struggling for air, watched her face, saw her mussed hair, saw her soil
herself repeatedly, and he began to understand what was happening from
having a hands on experience.  Crying mother/family + baby ferret barely
moving and breathing in his hands + speeding to a vet in a car + the word
dead = death.  I saw him changing in the car along the way as a little
light bulb went off.  And that's when I realized that this might be the
best thing that could happen for him.
 
Taking a small boy to the vet with a dying ferret to a euthanization
might be scowled at by some people.  And they might be right, at least
in other situations.  But for Sean, it turned out to be a valuable
experience.  I don't know how, as I was nearly hysterical and very
desperate for help ... but I kept his best interest at heart during
everything.  I watched him carefully.  And I began to conclude that
perhaps ... this would be buffer to Rocky leaving us someday.
 
I did not have that tiny boy in the room as she was put to sleep.  But,
I did, have the nurse bring him into the room to see her after it was
finished.  I took his little hand, ran it over her fur, and then put her
into his arms while she was still warm.  He surprised me by looking up at
me with his blue eyes, and he said, "look mommy, she looks just like she
used to look now".  And he was right.  Her face was perfectly peaceful.
I had never realized how strained her face was and how she was grimacing
at the end.
 
You know, I thought that would be the end of it, and I was so wrong.  It
had just begun.  And I had to experience the scab getting ripped off
repeatedly by him over the course of the next six months.  He did not
understand what he saw as much as I thought he had.  But little by little
he'd interrupt our dinner or a baseball game with a question that flew
into his brain like flash of lightening.  It was always a detailed,
graphic and profound one.  Autistic children do things repeatedly.  So
in between all the new questions, he was repeating what he asked to
hear the answers over and over again.  It was excruciating but also
fascinating to witness by my family and I.  And I knew, all the way back
then, that this was going to be the best foundation for him to fall back
onto the day Rocky leaves.
 
Wolfy
http://wolfysluv.jacksnet.com
[Posted in FML issue 4870]