Thanks everyone! It is hard to explain it all to a 7 year old. My 2 teenage boys went with me to take Twisty to the trauma center and my husband stayed home with my daughter. When I knew what I had to do I had texted my husband so he could prepare her (and before I left we had told her that Twisty may not come back). When I came home with just her collar she asked me, "Why do you only have her collar - where is Twisty?". She cried all night - it was almost 3 am when I got her to sleep. On Saturday she kept asking me why I couldn't go get Twisty and give her one more chance. It was all just questions that I was ill prepared to answer. On Sunday they called for us to pick up her ashes. My daughter got a little excited which puzzled me. Then she told me that she couldn't wait to stick her hand in the vase and pet Twisty on the head again. I had to explain to her that she could not do that and she got so upset - crying and screaming, "Why can't I pet her anymore?". I explained to her that Twisty was now whole again - she can see, hear, stand, walk and run again. All the things that she could not do with us. I also explained to her that even though we can't see Twisty anymore - she is always with us. On Sunday she started playing with "imaginary" Twisty. She threw and ball and played fetch. She said that Saturday night Twisty had slept with her. She even told me, "Look mama, Twisty can jump on the couch now". I didn't discourage this and played with imaginary Twisty with her. Sunday night she told me, "I don't care if I can't see Twisty, I still love her". Her usual after school routine is to come home and hold Twisty so today was the first day without her. She did remarkably well. She did see the school counselor today. When I asked her how that went she didn't really tell me too much so I will probably call him tomorrow and see how he feels it went. If anyone has any suggestions to help me help her deal with it all please feel free to let me know.
Also, we created a photo card at Walgreens.com with a collage of pictures of Twisty and I let her write in the text block and this is what she wrote:
Twisty is the best dog in the world
but she went to heaven she is happy
Twisty the NUMBER 1 dog and the best person in my life
If will try to post a picture of it soon so you guys can see what she created to remember Twisty. |