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]