(Not so) Happy Anniversary

This afternoon I realized that a year ago today was one of the saddest days our young household has experienced thus far. It was the day that both of the kids' pets died. Many of you know that we used to have a guinea pig (Annie's) and a parakeet (Noah's). Read on, but you may need a kleenex!

A few days before this all happened, Lily the guinea pig was acting sick. She wasn't eating or drinking very much, and she just kind of hunkered down in the corner of her cage. Lily was over three years old, which is around middle age for a guinea pig, we discovered. We had treated her for mites the year before, which turned out to be very expensive (more than we paid for Lily and her cage and initial food and supplies combined), so we warned Annie that there wasn't really anything we could do for her, if she really was sick. And so she was . . . I remember the moment so clearly: we were finishing up with dinner; Annie ate quickly and went up to hold Lily. A few minutes later we heard her cry, "She's dead. Lily's dead!" We all ran up, and there was Annie sobbing and sitting in the hallway with Lily in her arms. She'd died in Annie's arms. I wrapped Lily up in a towel and we buried her in our backyard under one of our lilac bushes. What happened next was the bizzare thing.

Noah had chosen Flutter for his 6th birthday just 3 1/2 months before. I remember earlier on that crazy day seeing Flutter scuttle around his cage, chirping away. He was acting completely fine, which is why this was such a shock. So after we buried Lily, we were all settling down, and Chris sent Noah up to his room to get his pajamas on. As soon as Noah got to his room, he yelled out, "Flutter!" He walked down the stairs, crying and carrying a stiff Flutter in his hands. Sometime during the day, the poor bird died too. We somehow got Flutter buried next to Lily, with both the kids sobbing. Chris and I kept looking at each other in bewilderment. This is too much sadness in one day, I kept thinking. I started questioning my decision to let our kids have small pets (who obviously don't live very long) at such a young age. At some point that evening, Annie asked, "Why did Heavenly Father let them both die on the same day??" I didn't have an answer. We finally got everyone ready for bed, read scriptures, said a prayer, and we all sat on the bed and talked for awhile. Annie smiled through her tears and said, "I love this family."

We let Noah sleep in Annie's room that night. After we closed the door, Chris and I could hear them both sniffling, which gradually turned into talking, and eventually turned into giggling, before they went to sleep. The next day when I dropped Annie and Noah off at school, I watched them walk toward the school with their arms around each other. I had my answer to Annie's question the night before. Their grief bonded them closer together, and they were helping each other cope.

If you're not a pet person, this may seem a little dramatic, but for an 8 and a 6 year old, this was a big deal. We are currently petless, and we will be until (as I have told Annie and Noah over and over) "we have a yard big enough to fit a dog, and we are finished having kids."