The dead bird

This weekend, we were decorating for Christmas. Greg and I both enjoy getting the decorating done early and REALLY embracing the holiday season. November and December are my two most favorite months ever. Really all of fall is my favorite because I love decorating and baking and baking and eating. It’s great.

My brother, John, was in town and helping Greg decorate the outside front tree with lights. I was in with Garrison ,and could hear Gwen trying to get their attention. Guys. They are forever ignoring the talking us gals do. Then I hear John; “Oh my God, that’s a dead bird. Gwen has a dead bird” And Greg says much the same thing. There’s a big of chaotic rambling and Gwen comes into the house, carried by Greg, for some intense hand-washing. 

Meanwhile, my brother John disposed of the bird. End of story, right? Never with Gwen. She went right back outside and started asking incessantly about her bird. Where was it? It was hurt! Where was her bird! John kept telling her the bird got better and flew off, but Gwen didn’t accept that explanation. She was insistent that she wanted to see her bird. I decided to intervene. 

“Gwen baby, come here.” 

She came over and I turned her to me and held her shoulders gently.

“Sometimes, things and people get hurt. And they don’t get better. Sometimes they die from being hurt so bad. That’s what happened to your bird, baby. It was hurt, and it was hurt so bad that it died instead of getting better.”

Gwen listened intently and nodded her head. She paused for a second and looked up at the sky, then back at me. 

“Ok, but I want to go say goodbye to my bird”. 

It was a reasonable request. So John pointed me at the trashcan, I picked up Gwen, and off we went. I lifted the lid and sure enough, there at the bottom of the can lay the stiff and rather sad little bird. Gwen looked at it solemnly, and then said “Bye bird, I’ll miss you”. I shut the lid and we walked away. 

To be honest, I was a little teary from the moment. We all know people who we wish were still in our lives, and I have a few that I wish were around to see my kids. My brother was a little misty too. Having returned from Afghanistan for the second time he is all too aware how sometimes things get hurt so badly that they don’t get better. 

I didn’t think I’d have to talk about death to my two year old. I thought that was a conversation for far in the future maybe when a beloved family pet dies. I thought that maybe I’d have something very poignant to say about death, something comforting. However, when the moment came unexpectedly (as they all too often do with kids), there was nothing to say but the truth. 

Which Gwen accepted. 

And once more, she surprised and impressed the heck out of me all at once. I'm one lucky mom.