Dead birthday

We lost Ethan yesterday. Or rather, yesterday we discovered that he had passed, no telling when. Poor Ethan. He died a lonely, mostly unnoticed hamster death. In case you were keeping track, that's three hamsters that have perished under our watch. And so, we buried the little man after many tears and some post-mortem caresses (eeeew).

I think this particular death caused so much more grief for the girls because it was so much more mysterious than the others. Little John fell to his death and got trapped, probably dehydrated as he lay tangled in the curtains behind the toy bin. Mason went squish. But Ethan? A bowl full of food, a bottle full of water, a clean little cage and a coconut house to call his own. The girls were baffled.

With a couple of rodent deaths under my belt, I took a new, different approach yesterday. I comforted them. I told them it was ok to feel sad. I said no when Bela asked if we could drive straight away to the pet store and get more pets. In fact, I made almost no mention of replacement critters.

Mae broke down: Now we hardly have ANY pets. All we have are crickets, two cats, a hundred fish, and two guinea pigs.

This did not convince me.

Instead, we talked about feeling sad. We hugged. They buried him. And then we did what everyone should do in their deepest times of sorrow: we baked a cake. A lemon pound cake with drizzly lemon sugar glaze.

I let Bela take charge of the cake while Mae made the soup for dinner. Bela creamed butter and cream cheese while Mae chopped carrots. Bela cracked eggs while Mae stirred in parsley. And all of a sudden, Mae declared: Hey! I haven't even thought about Ethan for awhile. My mind is on something else! I don't feel sad! Bela chimed in: My mind is not even on anything at all!

We sat down to a dinner of Hearty Pea Soup, bread, cheese, salad. We cleared the table, turned the lights down low, and then proceeded to do the creepiest thing I've done in a long time. We celebrated what Bela called "dead birthday."  (I suggested dead day, or deathday). We lit candles on our cake and our voices joined in the strangest rendition of "Happy Birthday" I ever care to sing again.

And the girls were smiling.