I looked up at my mom as she hung up the
phone. I may have been three or four
years old. She told me that Mister
Gurkey died. (40 something years later I
remember his last named rhymed with turkey.)
As the family of a local pastor we got prayer requests and information
sooner than others. And for the past
several nights when I said my prayers before bed my mom had asked me to pray
for Mr. Gurkey because he was in the hospital.
I don’t remember if I asked why he was there but I think that he was an
old man near the end of his days. So I
had been dutifully praying every night for him.
After my mom told me what they said on the
phone I imagined the person at the other end of the line. They were frantic and busy. Whatever had put Mr. Gurkey in the hospital
in the first place had gotten worse. Now
the doctors, who had been working on him for days, were busier than ever trying
to fix him. I expressed my thoughts to
my mom and she told me that the doctors were done trying to fix Mr.
Gurkey. When someone died, there wasn’t
anything the doctors could do anymore. I
considered that and I was doubtful of that finality.
Death to a preschooler was just too big and way
too long to imagine. That night when I
said my prayers I added on: “and help Mr.
Gurkey up with you.” Again my mom
had to explain something. Once someone
was with God in heaven you didn’t need to pray to help them anymore. Everything was okay once they were with
God. Despite those joyous tidings, I
still did not care for the idea of death. Each night when I would say my nighttime prayers,
just before the “amen” I always said “and thank you God for everything…”. It
may have been right around then that in my mind I silently added: “except dying.”
Our family dealt with the death of a pet over
ten years ago when one of the four pet rats we had died after only a few
weeks. The four children, Harrison,
Naomi, Benjamin and Sarah, were devastated.
We buried the dead rat in the side yard and had a whole funeral. We knew that rats had limited lifetimes and
saw the loss of several more rats over the years. Prajna and I didn’t seem to learn our lesson
when we got Sarah a beta fish for her birthday which didn’t last a month. By then we owned Pumpkin. The animal shelter had already named him when
we got him. He grew to a big orange cat
and survived two moves and saw the passing of 4 other cats.
When I got home from church yesterday Sarah
was digging a hole in the corner of the yard.
Prajna told me that they found Pumpkin dead. He had no signs of injury or poisoning. We don’t know why he died. I went out and finished digging the
hole. I let Jamie take a few shovel
scoops. Then we all gathered around, put
the cat in the ground and took turns filling in the hole. Prajna said a little prayer thanking God for
Pumpkin and we put flowers in the fresh dirt.
It was the most elaborate pet memorial since Darcy the rat. It wasn’t quiet for a moment when Nathaniel
walked away saying he hoped his lunch hadn’t gotten cold.
Sarah was the one who took care of Pumpkin
the most. Most of the Facebook posts
express sympathy to her. I kind of want
to say that I liked him a lot too. And
as I write this I can look directly to my right and there is the windowsill
with Pumpkin’s food dish. Some mornings
around this time he could be there. Now
he’s in the ground or in cat heaven, we can only wonder.
All my kids are older than I was when I first
grappled with the notion of death. They
are all older than any were when our first rat died. Today, Nathaniel is a few months shy of how
old Harrison was when we lost Naomi. And
after Naomi, a ginger tomcat might seem insignificant.
And I think it is. For better or worse, dealing with loss has
toughened me a little bit. The loss of
Pumpkin doesn’t hurt too bad. I think I
can get through this. However, even
after 40 years, I still think of death the same way I did back when I was very
young. I’m not as afraid to fall of my
little bicycle for fear I might die. But
death is a great big unknown. No matter how much I believe God’s promises,
I still don’t know exactly what to expect.
And me, someone who gets bent out of shape when I don’t have a precise
floor plan for a weekend event, like to know what to expect. I think that faith has to be a mighty stepping
stone in the walk I take. The passing of
a cat reminded me of that.