Tonight's tragedy...

0327001850.jpg, originally uploaded by lichen lady.

"Daddy, I need your help!"
This is an urgent plea from the hall. I rush to see our oldest holding our little chick Hope in her hand. But Hope is limp and not moving. She's dead. Forget that dinner is just out of the oven on the table. The whole world stops right now. I transfer Hope to my hand, peek on the other chicks for a split sec and call Daddy. Daddy comes to Fairy Girl's side and carries her to a chair in the living room. She's sobbing, holding her chest, asking, "why her, why did it have to be her? She was my favorite. I loved her so much!" While Daddy's soothes and listens, I am running around the kitchen and mudroom trying to find a box just Hope's size, because it's a little weird holding a warm dead chick. I couldn't find anything, but then I thought of emptying the muffin liners and putting her in this box. It was a perfect fit. The box almost feels empty, Hope weighed next to nothing.
Then I carry her out to my family gathered in the living room. Fairy girl is having a hard time breathing, holding her chest in pure and innocent seven year old agony! I look away but not after her grief has caught my heart. I walk back to the kitchen to shed some tears and come back. We move to the couch with our sad little girl between us asking the big, "WHY?" questions. Hope was all of our's favorite chick. She was so wonderful to hold, but as we look back, she was weak from the start, not just a super docile bird.
Next we move to "what can we do?" questions. We'll bury her next to Grendel. But she wants to get another chick, right now! We can't do that right now. Maybe tomorrow. She wants to know what she's supposed to do, and a whole new wave of devestation surfaces and shes sobbing again. I run around looking for my Rescue Remedy. I find it and offer it to her. Then we suggest writing and drawing pictures in her diary she just got for her birthday (which I still want to blog about, more later on that). She runs to get it. Yes, dinner is cold now. But it will get colder because she decides she wants to write a rhyme about her sadness. We wait. We help with spelling. The Rescue Remedy starts working and we're calming down.
We had planned to go out for ice cream at The Scoop beforehand, but now more than ever, I am wishing that they've got their Molasses Cookie flavor in stock. That's her favorite flavor (mine too). Thank you Scoop for being open and having our flavor. We can face tomorrow now.