Or Maybe He's on a Farm Somewhere. Playing.

On Sunday morning, this is what I posted on Twitter:

To Do List: Tell kids beloved dog is dead. Hint broadly that if they'd cleaned their room, things may have been different.

Of course I was joking about the room cleaning part, but please understand me.  My husband had just left for a business trip.  My son's 7 year old friends were over from a sleepover the night before.  My daughter was creating a Master Race on The Sims2.  My mother called to tell me that their dog died and I was tasked to let my children know.  Some days really suck.

Although my kids went through our dog Mavis' death, they were much younger then and I was worried that this would hit them harder.  I have been preparing them for weeks.  He is old. He is sick. He will die soon. I talked about it so much that at one point my daughter asked, "is he really still alive?"  And yet, apparently, I was too subtle.  Because when I told them that he died, my daughter dissolved into tears and my son said "I don't even know what that means," before he fell on me and sobbed.  It broke my heart.  

As my son sat sobbing, I tried to comfort him. "It's ok to feel sad and cry," I told him. "When Mavis died , I cried a lot."

He intensified the sobbing as my daughter scolded me. "You're going about this all wrong," she said. "First our grand-dog, and now Mavis? Who are you going to bring up next, your grandfather?" referring to my grandfather's death two years ago. Duly noted.

But they are children, and there was levity. Because I swear, kids make everything better. Except sleeping in on fall back Sundays.

So, here are the memorable things that my kids said, as they started sitting shiva:

"He was like a brother to me, except he was a dog and not annoying like my brother." (daughter)

"I wish he could become undead." (son)

"I always thought that if someone in your family died and went to heaven, they could control you from there, the way that I can control Sims characters." (daughter)

"When you're dead and are in heaven, it's all black.  You can't do anything and you can't eat ice cream." (son)

My son has also created something that I call the Wailing Wall--he has a whiteboard in his room, and he's been writing messages to the dog.

"I miss you."

"I loved you but now it's the end."

"Sorry to say this, but you're dead."

Every time he walks past that wall, he looks at it, sighs and weeps.  I know that it's a normal mourning process and it's healthy to go through it and I'm trying not be cynical when the kids tell me that having extra time with the video games is "the comfort" that they need right now. And that ice cream is the salve for their emotional wounds.