Thursday, July 12, 2007

Any Suggestions?

I'm afraid we will have a difficult situation to deal with in the very near future, possibly within the next couple days. We may have to say a planned goodbye to family pet.

Fred the Cat is 16yrs. old and is not doing so good. He's at the vet as of right now and we're awaiting the test results.

My sister and Isaiah will have a hard time if we have to put Fred down, Fred belongs to my sister. I'm wondering if anyone out there has a suggestion to help Isaiah through this. For some reason explaining a person's death is a bit simpler when they're a Christian and you know they're going Home. I'm positive Fred the Cat is not a Christian and therefore don't really know what to say to Isaiah about death. I don't want to feed him a line about "kitty heaven" because that's just not the truth.

Isaiah is a very sensitive boy and this will just really hurt his little heart. So....if anyone has a good idea about what to say let me know. Thank you

3 comments:

rt said...

I am definitely not an expert but... We had to have our dog put down the week before Christmas. I don't know how old Isaiah is but my youngest are 10 and 11. They knew our dog was not very well and we talked about what the vet might say after her next check up. When our worst fears were confirmed we told the children what would happen. (The process of getting a shot that slowly and PAINLESSLY makes all her body functions stop.) We got permission from the vet to bring her home after the check up. He wasn't sure she would make it through the night.Everyone go say goodbye and we all talked about our favorite memories. The next morning Dad took her in. We felt it best to not take the whole family as she already "knew" we were upset and we didn't want to make it harder on her. As for the heaven part we told the children there was no place in heaven for pets. God created pets as helpers not equals. We can hold our pets forever in our memories. If cremation of your cat is an option that would give him something to hang on to. We did this with the promise that each child could have some ash. After we got her back two of the three children didn't want any any more. The "sore" part was alreay healing. I probably miss her more than anyone else because most of the resposibilty of her care was mine. That and she was great at keeping my kitchen floor cleaning when I cooked. Hears to my dog. Hope this helps.

Carla said...

I agree with Sackett. We have already talked of the time when Griffen the fatcat will pass away and we will hang onto the memories we have. I told the cherubs that animals don't have souls and no Griffen won't be there.
I am sorry to hear about your cat. It is not easy, butlife lessons aren't always easy. Isaiah will cherish your honesty about it.

Katie R. said...

Thank you Char and Carla,
That was a good idea to talk about memories, etc. Isaiah is taking it okay for now. This may all be for nought as the tests come back tomorrow so we don't know anything until then. This is my sister's cat and she'll make the ultimate decision if it has to be made but, Isaiah is the type of boy that needs awhile to process things so we had to start the conversation now. Eventually it will happen even if it's not tomorrow. Thank you again I just needed some assurance, I guess. :)