Friday, May 1, 2009

R.I.P Little Skamper

Tonight we had an unfortunate incident happen in our yard.  A very elderly squirrel, who my daughter named Skamper, fell out of a tree.  While his untimely demise is tragic, the real tragedy is that my liberal, tree hugging, vegetarian daughter found Skamper.  The poor little guy was clearly in pain, his hours numbered and unable to move.  Hannah wanted us to somehow save him.  This was of course impossible.  My husband believes that his back was broken and a painful death was imminent.  This news of course sent Hannah over the edge.  She ran to her room in tears, angry at everyone and everything who had a hand in this squirrel's injury.

Since Skamper was clearly in a lot of pain, Eric did the humane thing and ended his life.  It was obviously very sad, but necessary.   Unfortunately, we did not know she was watching from her window and she saw the whole thing.  This made her even more upset.  To ease her pain, we decided to have a funeral for Skamper (the name she gave him).  I found an old shoe box, Hannah decorated it, we dug a whole and buried it.  Hannah gave a eulogy, I even sang Amazing Grace.  At this point, my husband asked if I had been drinking.  In hind sight, I would say that was a fair question.  We ended by throwing dirt on the box and covering the sight with rocks.  A dignified funeral for a dignified squirrel.

We ended the service with a pruner falling on my husband's head.  The string of profanities that came out of his mouth was all the incentive we needed to quickly end the funeral and go inside. Eric is fine, Hannah is in mourning and the rest of us are happy that this evening is coming to an end.  This was our first animal funeral and I am guessing it will not be our last, we have 2 dogs.  We attempted to use it as an opportunity to explain about the circle of life, survival of the fittest, squirrel heaven.  Useless words that fell on deaf ears this evening.  At the very least, it prepared them for the fact that someday, their beloved pets will die.

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