SEAT OF MY SOUL

Many years ago we had a cockatiel called Solly.  He was very much part of the family and loved by all.  One sunny afternoon, while he was sitting outside in his cage, a bee stung him and not long after he died.  It was a very tragic experience for my daughter, the very first time she experienced death, so we did the right thing, placed him in a box and went through the ritual of burying him under a tree in the garden.

Of course the questions started about where Solly went and for months after, she would come back from school, went to the spot where we placed Solly and put a little flower in the ground. I remember that it was a very wet winter with lots of rain that year and one afternoon, while making food in the kitchen, Simone came storming in, with the plastic bag filled with a skeleton and feathers!  She was hysterical and said that I told her a lie because Solly did not go to heaven….the proof was right there in her hands!  It took forever to calm her down and trying to explain what the process was.

The moral of the story is that we have to be very careful what we tell our children …..and please make sure the hole you dig is deep enough!!!! Simone is 33 years old today and still talks about Solly!!!

This entry was posted on June 13, 2010 at 8:48 am and is filed under Uncategorized with tags bury, children, Cockatiel, Death, story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.