A short time ago, Jackson and I were playing in the backyard. When I climbed to the top of the play structure, I noticed a dead bird laying on the bark below. Our cat, only recently an outdoor kitty, must have killed it and left it there. Normally I would have simply disposed of the bird without thinking, but this time needed to be different. How in the world do you explain "dead bird" to a two-year old?
I told Jackson that I had to show him something and walked him over to the bird. I told him that this bird was no longer alive and that, when things die, they go back to nature. We went to the garage for hand shovels and returned to make a hole for the bird's body. As I decided on a shady spot under a tree for our bird funeral, Jackson raised his shovel above his head and shouted as though scolding the bird, "go back to nature, bird!"
We dug a hole under a redwood tree and placed the bird inside. We thanked him for visiting our yard and told him that we loved him. We buried the bird and said goodbye. I explained that the bird would now "go back to nature".
I don't know how much of this Jackson understood, but he asked our cat several times, "did you bite a bird, Barley?" and told Steve that we "got shovels for a dead bird to go back to nature". Now, when we tell him that something went "back to nature", he seems to understand a little of what that means.
Posted by Allison
