Dealing with Grief as a 4 year old

January is always a terrible month.  But this January has been awful.

Finances are tight and Christmas was a frugal one so when our beloved family cat Millie started to go downhill just before Christmas, we spent everything we could to try and make her better.  After several visits to the vet over Christmas and upwards of £400 we could barely afford on treatments not covered by insurance, we made the tough decision to have her put to sleep.  My wife was very attached to the Cat and wanted to bury her in the garden, I was less keen wanting the garden to remain a happy family space rather than a graveyard.  Lots of tears were shed.

But to my wife and I Millie was our first baby who we’d had for over 10 years, without sounding like a pitch for a bestselling book “Millie and Me” the cat was around to offer comfort when we were struggling to conceive and my wife suffered a long bout of depression, she had been with us through our lives from trendy twenty some things to married thirty something parents.

This is the first time (and I hope for a long time) both girls have ever experienced death and loss. Sure my grandmother passed away last year but she was living in a home could barely speak or hear. A visit was more of a frightening experience for the Girls than a pleasant one.   Besides my grandmother never slept at the bottom on number 1’s bed or followed number 2 around trying to steal her food… although she did piss on the carpet on occasion.

My wife explained on picking number 1 up from school that Millie had passed away and we’d bury her in the garden.  #1 was inquisitive, “can I see her?”  “Will she be with Greatnan now?”  but on the whole she seemed fine.  The following day she came home with a picture she’d drawn of something she’d like to put on Millie’s grave, I tried, I really did, but part grief, part touched by childish innocence I couldn't help shed a tear there and then.  She looked mortified she’d upset her big brave daddy.   

After that #1 wanted to go and see where the cat is buried in the garden, every day, even in the snow. Drawings coming home from school mostly featured cats, while books she borrowed from the School library were about looking after Cats.  While the bedtime story of choice was 'Tabby McTatt' or 'The Wishcat'. She even started sitting in the cats preferred places - on top of the sofa, by the radiator while sleeping in her own bed became an issue, which it hadn't been for a long while.

It was obvious she was dealing with grief but her little brain didn't really understand why or how to manifest itself.  Not sure what to do I turned to twitter, several people suggested the Lion King was a good film to watch, given number 1 is not yet 4 and a half, I thought maybe too subtle.  

It was @workingmumuk that offered up the following useful tips (and I hope I’m not breaking any trust by sharing them)

• ·         To tell number 1, It’s OK to be sad and miss the cat
• ·         The concept of heaven (despite not being religious) made it easier for Children to accept someone was going to a happy place with others they knew
• ·         She also suggested a star to remember the cat by  

Armed with this new advice we sat down and suggested that #1 should plant a flower where the cat was buried and we’d remember the nice times we spent together with the cat every time we looked at it, we also put a picture up on our picture wall of the Cat and her together. This seemed to go down very well with number 1 & we don’t seem to have had any problems since.

I still miss the cat though.