I asked both kids to give me their best one at breakfast this morning and Lincoln was the only one to comply. Perhaps the grief is still too raw for Greta. Although I doubt that. I thought this recent blog in The New York Times summed up a child's relationship to household pets pretty well:
As a child, my pets (in total, four dogs and one cat) were convenient companions: Warm bodies to be paid attention to and loved and snuggled with in between soccer practices, play dates and tap dance recitals; living, breathing toys who could be counted on to engage in a game of chase or offer a wagging tail when I was in the mood, and to go away when I wasn’t. The real work they required — the care, the feeding, the early-morning walks, the doctor’s appointments — was left to the adults, and their eventual deaths felt oblique and unreal, the fatal cancers within them hidden well out of reach of both medical specialists and innocent eyes.
--"We Were Kittens Once, and Young," by Anna Holmes
I should add that Carey has promised them both some sort of stuffed Maine Coon that she is frantically Googling for. It's better than taxidermy, I suppose. Creepy enough that they're each getting a small urn with ashes in it.
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