The Bug

I want to share this story because I have the sweetest and cutest 4-year-old niece (Kid2). Sis and her family came for dinner last night and she sent this note to my sibs this morning...

------
Yesterday, there's this scary moth in The Boy's room. Kid2 watches in fearful glee as Aunt Sylph catches it in a container and asks, wide-eyed and brave, "Can I keep it?". Aunt Sylph instantly and easily makes it happen, transferring the bug into a Ziploc container. I have my reservations. Kid2 has been very obsessed with death since the loss of Granny, Dad and Friend, always asking me when I'm going to die, when Popo is going to die, etc.

Kid2 spends the rest of the evening worrying about "Princess", wanting her to get enough air, food, water. Holding onto the container in a half fascinated and half scared way, but insisting on keeping it with her as we go for gelato, as we travel in the car.

She wakes this morning and the first thing she says is "Where's Princess? Did she eat?". We come downstairs (I had given her water and some leaves before bed) and she's floating, lifeless in the water.

Kid2 is quiet and contemplative for awhile. She asks if the water bowl crushed her, if she didn't get enough air, etc. Then she starts to cry, really, really cry. Big tears streaming down her face. I hold her and start the "All living creatures have a life cycle and all moths die in about a day. Just like flowers. It's a part of life. Nothing could have stopped it." She's still crying. I'm beginning to curse Aunt Sylph.

I start the "But you gave Princess the happiest life she could have had. If you hadn't taken care of her, she would have ended her life on some wall, eventually getting wacked by a shoe. You gave her love and food and water and played with her. She died happy". That worked. She nods and smiles and says "I want to keep her in the house forever. I don't want to put her outside".

I explain that her body will fall apart and we can't do that. I remind her that we bury things that die and have funerals. I suggest we can do that in the backyard. "I'll put flowers on it and we'll live here forever and forever?". I say, "Yes".

"Can we do it now?" says Kid2. "Of course" I say, although it is 6:30 a.m., but she's no longer crying. We go to the kitchen and Princess is walking around the edge of the water bowl. We both startle a little and then we look at each other and start to laugh. I lift the lid and at the sight of Princess, Kid2 screams. She's still a little scared of Princess. It is a big, mottled, fluttering bug afterall.

"OK, so Princess isn't dead yet. You can still take care of her for now. But she probably will die sometime today and then we can have a funeral, OK?"

Thanks, Sylph.
------

That was a Kodak moment, no?