Life is not simple for our eight year old daughter, Emma. She instinctively works hard at sorting out the problems and mysteries of her life. She cannot accept the easy solution offered up to her like a stick of margarine neatly packaged in the creased and folded foil wrapper. Emma churns ideas in her head like sour milk, turning them over and over to shape and solidify them into hard earned sweet butter.
Sometimes Emma’s turning and churning of life is painful to the rest of us. Most recently she has been focused on the death of a three month old Labrador puppy that had a short life at our house. We found Amy, the black lab runaway, when we returned home after a family summer trip. We all found her quick and cute with brown melt-your-heart eyes. Our time with her was brief, however, since she died under the rear wheel of our car as we drove down the driveway one rainy night during the second week of her stay. We were all grieving as we dug her grave at the woods-edge that rainy night, rolling tears mixed with streaming raindrops. Several days of sorrow followed her burial as we remembered all the cuteness and forgot the annoyances like her chewing up the wooden door to the screened porch or chewing a giant hole in the soccer net or running into the house every time the door opened. Within the week my husband and I along with our five year old son had essentially recovered from the trauma.
Emma had stopped crying, but was just beginning her full assessment of the event. Several times a day she would recount an Amy cuteness and then ask, “Does it make you sad to talk about it?” Of course it did. The second week after the accident she spent the day in her Montessori classroom learning finger weaving. That night she colored a puppy picture black, entitled it “Amy” and tacked it to the wall over her bed. She framed it with her longest finger weaving to date to create an Amy memorial which hangs to this day two months later.
Amy comments continued over the following weeks until the one month anniversary of Amy’s death when Emma reported at the supper table that during her prayers the previous night she had asked God if Amy was happy in heaven. After a brief pause our son asked, “What did he say?” Emma looked thoughtful, but didn’t offer an answer.
Two weeks ago Emma was required to write several paragraphs as part of her school homework. The first paragraph was to be fiction and Emma wrote about her participation in the Olympics. The second factual paragraph was entitled-you guessed it – “Amy.” It was a well written description of Amy’s short life, death and burial.
Now at two months post-event I am hopeful that we are near the final resolution for Emma. Last night she said, “You know what I learned from Amy?”
“No,” I replied sadly. “What did you learn?”
“That you have to spend a world of time with things while they’re alive because someday they’ll die.”
Emma now has a super short surfer haircut leftover from the summer. I approached her about letting her hair grow longer to prevent the occasional mistaken gender identity when someone calls her a boy. It really drives me crazy. Relaxed Emma said, “Mom, it really doesn’t bother me. Besides when I feel like a boy I feel stronger and faster.” I think in the long-run strength and speed will not serve her as well as her tenacious commitment to internal analysis and problem resolution. Maybe if I can convince her of that she’ll let her hair grow.