Lessons learned
October 9, 2007 at 7:22 Recently ten-year-old E-Grrrl was given a writing assignment at school, asked to write about something precious to her. She tackled the assignment on two fronts--writing about her favorite stuffed animal and her beloved pets. Here's what she turned in, exactly as she wrote it:
The Story of Piggy
I got Piggy our first Christmas here. I asked Santa for a stuffed animal, but I did not expect a pig! I was not too interested in her at first, but during Christmas break, she became my favorite stuffed animal.
On our first day back to school, I started crying. “I don’t wanna go without Piggy!” I cryed, holding her tight. “Okay,” my mom agreed. “She can come.” And she did.
A month before our second Christmas, Pete joined the family. He was a fun, cute, wild black ball of fur. Our other cat, Amy, did not take a liking to Pete, who tried many times to be her friend.
At Christmas, Pete was always running and out of the tree. Once he even tried to climb it! The best presents Pete got that Christmas were a home and wrapping paper!
Piggy got ribbons that Christmas. She looked adorable all decked up in holiday cheer!
Shortly after Christmas, mid-January, my cat Amy was diagnosed with cancer. When I found out, all I did was cry and hug Piggy. She had cancer around her lungs, and the cancer was bleeding making her lungs shrink. She could not breathe.
The worst night of my life was when Amy died. We had taken her to an animal clinic to see if we could do anything. It was horrible!
Half way home my cat started crying, which made us cry harder. The vet said that the best thing to do would be to put her to sleep a.k.a. kill her. I cryed so hard. I thought I would die. I said goodbye a million times. Then my dad took her to the vet. I cried myself to sleep that night, hugging Piggy the whole time. In the morning, I found out that my cat had died before the shot. I barely said anything the following week. Amy lived to be 14. I still miss her a lot. As you can see, Piggy has been through a lot and I love her.
When I read her composition, I realized how much Amy's death back in January was still on her mind, so I opened up a conversation with her about it, telling her that I still missed Amy a lot too, the way she slept on my bed and how she loved to be held and handled, something our younger more energetic cat is not so fond of.
E-Grrrl responded that she wished Amy hadn't died, that horrible things like that didn't happen.
I paused trying to collect my thoughts before saying, "It is sad that terrible things happen, but good things can come from our bad experiences."
She was incredulous. "How can anything good happen from something so bad?"
I said, "I think you learned some valuable lessons from Amy's death, things that maybe you couldn't have learned any other way."
"Like what?" she said.
"You tell me. What did you learn from Amy's death?"
She jumped on the most obvious point first, "Well I learned that pets die. They don't live forever."
"True. What else?"
"Well because they don't live forever, you need to appreciate them while you have them. One day they may be gone."
"That's true too. It's important to appreciate the things and people we love, but there's another lesson you learned from losing Amy. A big one," I added.
I gave her time to think and she still was drawing a blank.
I said, "Before you lost Amy,you didn't know how hard it was to lose a pet or experience a death. You didn't know what it felt like, how much it hurt, how sad you'd feel about it even many months later, how it could be, as you said, the worst thing that had ever happened to you," I told her.
"Because you went through that experience, you now know what it's like for someone else to suffer that kind of loss. When a friend or classmate loses a pet, you can talk to them about it, or hug them, or just be with them when they feel sad. That's called being compassionate.
"The hard experiences in our life provide an opportunity for us to learn to be compassionate, and if we all act more compassionately toward one another, the world would be a better place. Some people just let their bad experiences make them angry or bitter or sad, and it's OK to feel that way for a time, but it's important to look for ways to turn the bad things in our life into something good. It makes them easier to bear and it helps us be better people," I concluded.
I could see the gears turning in E-Grrrl's head. "That makes sense. Rachel lost her cat a few weeks before Amy died and she was my best friend in helping me after Amy died. She understood how I felt."
Bingo.
E-Grrrl and I both learned a lesson, and Piggy came along for the ride.
October 9, 2007
Reader Comments (20)
You tell the good and bad of the truth.
Moments like this are meant to compensate for the times I beg them to shut their pie holes and get out of my space. Not always a good mom, : ) but I try...
Thanks for sharing this teaching moment with us V. As a new parent, I have no iead how these things are going to go for us. The thought intimidates me a lot.
At least you didn't yell, "Don't make me get out the duct tape!" : )
We are getting ready to leave our beloved dog of 10 years behind as well. His temperment does not make it possible for him to travel. I can relate to what you've been through. I look at him these days and just pet him and feel overwhelming sadness and guilt. He'll be here with family, but still. Add 3 years to his age while we are overseas, and I fear we'll all be dealing with this. May your reunion with your special pet be a sweet one. I think I'll print V-grrl's words of wisdom for later.
Mom sat on the side of my bed, letting me cry, stroking my hair until I fell asleep. I had forgot all about that night.
Mom's are pretty special people.
She used to have a blog. She writes a lot--has multiple journals. I don't know where she gets that from. : )
Piggy and E-Grrrl are a package deal. She also comes with many hair accessories, books, journals, art supplies, perfect report cards, a great sense of humor, and enough common sense that she could probably run the house if we let her. Of course, I may be a *little* biased, but she's quite the Grrrl.
Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad we shared the expat ride, and it looks like we'll be sharing repatriation as well.
We'll need a lot of Belgian beer to get us from now to then.