Godspeed, sweet Daisy

Today was a low point in our visit to Tennessee. My mom's dog Daisy has been at the animal hospital since before we arrived. She'd had a seizure last weekend and was found to have very low blood sugar, which led the vet to believe that she had a tumor on her pancreas. Although we'd all hoped that it would be only a surface tumor that might be able to be removed and give her some more quality time with us, when Dr. Warden did surgery today, it was found that it was just too advanced for anything to be done. Daisy was a very sweet dog, who had "belonged" to my dad, which makes her loss seem even greater. However, we are glad that she is not in pain and confusion any longer. Rebecca loves my mom's dogs and talks about them almost as much as she talks about our dogs. Before we came and since we have been here, she has asked about Daisy frequently. I'd explained that Daisy didn't feel good. She'd gotten to the point that she'd mention Daisy and then immediately say, "Daisy no feel good" with a sad look on her face.

After we learned the news about Daisy, I knew that the time had come for a discussion with Rebecca. She mentioned Daisy and immediately said, "Daisy no feel good." So I explained to her that most of the time when people or animals don't feel good, they go to the doctor and get better, but that Daisy was just too sick to get better so God took her to heaven to live with him. She looked pensive for a few moments and then went back to something else for awhile but mentioned Daisy again a couple of minutes later, so we went through the explanation again. A little later, Rebecca said she wanted to see Daisy..."please", so I explained that she was in heaven and that even though it made us sad that we couldn't see her, she was happy in heaven with Jesus. Then Rebecca said she wanted to go to church, so I'm pretty sure she was associating Daisy being with Jesus at church. That was a little more of a difficult explanation, since we talk about Jesus being at church in communion, that Jesus lives in our hearts, and Jesus is in heaven with Daisy and Grandpa. Those are concepts difficult for adults to grasp! I tried to keep the message simple about heaven, and after the last discussion of it, Rebecca hasn't asked again, but I'm sure it's just the beginning of a dialog about it.