Mummascribbles – Dealing with animal death and young children – Mummascribbles

There comes a time when our children are suddenly that little bit older and things that didn’t make sense to them, do now make sense. 

Last March we lost our cat Millie. Zach would have been two and a half and whilst he was fully aware that she was no longer with us, he didn’t really understand where she had gone. Just that she hadn’t been very well and that she was no longer around. He has mentioned her a few times since she went but didn’t mention anything about actual death.

He is also fully aware that my dad, his grandad, is not here. He knows that he was a person, has seen his photos and refers to him as grandad in the woods (because of the place his ashes are buried), but he has never ever asked why he isn’t here. It just isn’t something that has crossed his mind. 

He has of course known that things die – in particular, bugs. When we have come across dead flies or spiders or recently moths, he has asked if they are ‘deaded’. And so we found him at an age where he was starting to comprehend that things don’t stay alive forever. He is almost four so it feels like the kind of time when it’s easier to talk to him about these things. Which is handy! 

Very sadly on Tuesday, the other half went out into the garden to check on the rabbits before he left for work and he discovered that our very gorgeous girl Coco had died some time in the night. Her brother Magic was sitting next to her and she was lying down, eyes open and body stiff. We have no idea what happened, just that she was no longer with us. After the initial, what on earth do we do with a dead rabbit conversation – our thoughts turned to Zach who was sitting in the front room watching tv. What do we tell him, we asked each other. We decided that we had to be honest for obvious reasons and so we both went into the front room, sat next to him and told him the news. 

Zachary, we have some sad news to tell you. Daddy just went out to the rabbits and discovered that Coco has sadly died in the night. 

Cue a very sad face (but no tears), a little voice asking why, followed by the same little voice asking if he could go and see her. Of course we couldn’t say no and so we took him outside where he saw her. He was sad (but still no tears) and asked us again why it had happened, but sadly we just couldn’t give him a proper answer because we didn’t know. We said that it was likely that she was poorly and that we didn’t know about it and he was pretty happy with that. He toddled off back inside, the other half popped Coco in a box so we could figure out what to do with her and then the day started as usual, off to the train station for the other half and to nursery for Zach. I had thought he might mention it to the staff when he got there but he didn’t. 

I went off back home and phoned the vets to see if they would take her as I didn’t fancy burying her in the garden for the foxes to come along and dig her up! It was also an incredibly hot day and I didn’t want her festering away in a box. The vets said it was no problem and for the small fee of £21.60, they would take her off to be cremated. So just before 11, I took her in the box and left her with them. 

Zach has mentioned her quite a few times since it happened. He immediately came home from nursery and asked if he could see her in the box, sad to realise then that she was no longer at the house. He has been asking us if she is still dead and the first thing he said to me on Wednesday morning after he’d woken up was,

Mummy, I don’t want Coco to be dead. I want her to come back.

It’s heartbreaking that he is in his own way grieving for her but I am finding it important to keep him in the knowledge that no she isn’t coming back. He is obviously understanding what has happened and while when we lost Millie I was careful not to tell him too much, this time, I don’t see the point in hiding any of what has happened. 

We have another grieving one to deal with as well. Poor little Magic has lost his best buddy. He is sad and we can see it. When he is in his run, as soon as you go over to him he is reaching up on his back legs because he wants us. When he is in his hutch, he sits mainly in one place where he looks out solemnly, as if to say where has my sister gone? When the other half opened the hutch door last night, Magic immediately went to him and nuzzled his hand for strokes, something he wouldn’t normally do. He wants us and he wants love. He wants the grooming that his sister used to do and he wants the love that they had when they would sit next to each other, sometimes even resting on each other. 

We aren’t sure what to do yet. Do we leave him as a single rabbit or do we try and introduce a new buddy to him? It’s really tough to know. They might not get on, they might fight or they might turn into best buds. All I know is that right now he is lonely. We are keeping a close eye on him and giving him lots of extra love while we assess the situation. 

So my two grieving boys are missing little Coco right now. 

And so are we.