July 9, 2009

• A Grieving 2 yr. old

  In follow up to my little photo tribute to Duke.. I realized after putting it together why Austin must be grieving so hard.

  I figured he'd feel the loss.. like feeling insecure maybe b/c a member of our family up and disappeared on him.  I figured that it would shake his feeling of security.  Which it did.  The night after we took Duke in to the vet, he woke up crying and calling, "MOMMY!!" at 2 in the a.m. and wanted me to just sit and rock him for an hour before he would get back in his bed.  It has been a LONG time since he has been awake in the middle of the night for very long, usually just for teething, but he told me that night that his teeth didn't hurt.  I figured it was b/c of the dog.  Well, he's awakened in the middle of the night about 4 or 5 times in the last two weeks!  Always crying for mommy.  A couple of days after Duke had been gone, he was playing with a car and I heard him say "Bye bye, Duke... goin' to the DOCtor!!"  Which made me burst into tears, b/c it was so sweet and innocent. And sad.  He was reinacting our trip to the vet, the last time we saw Duke. We had told him we had to take Duke to the Dr. b/c he was too old and sick to live with us anymore.

  After we left the vet that day, he asked a few more times where Duke was and we told him, and he would say, "better go back and GET HIM!"  But he gradually accepted it.  I figured he might be a little clingy due to the security thing, which he was.  The day after we took Duke in, I had an appt. and then was going to take my Grandma to run her errands.. well I was gone for about 5 hours, and when I got home, he said "FANK YOU mommy for coming HOME!" and gave me the biggest hug.  Odd, yah.  Then 2 or 3 days later, I hadn't even left the house, all day.  He helped me do something so I said, "Thank you Austin for helping mommy" and again he thanked me for coming home. ?????  Yes, he felt like the carpet was yanked from under him, I think.

  What I didn't figure on, was the tantrums.  Yes, he started throwing tantrums and SCREAMING.  I thought, "oh great, he's finally entering THAT stage!"  Well, after about a week it disappeared.  A few days later I dug up a book I have called "What to Expect in the Toddler Years".  It had a paragraph on death and loss and listed 4 or 5 things you can expect anytime there's a major change in a child's environment at his age...

  1. Irritibility (did I mention how cranky he had been?)

  2. Clinginess (ultra-clingy!)

  3. Temper trantrums (ahh, so it's not a stage he's entering, thank you thank you THANK you!!!!)

  4. Sleep disturbances (yep)

  He had been exhibiting all of the normal signs.  I figured it'd rock his security for a little bit, but I was not anticipating all of the rest.  WOW.  I can't believe that I was thinking that he would get over it fast b/c of his age..  I figured "out of sight/out of mind" for him maybe. Boy was I wrong.  I felt really bad for him, b/c he himself probably didn't fully understand why he was feeling the way he was.

  Even after the symptoms of all the behavioral stuff started going away and he was acting like his normal self again, it was still on his mind.  About a week and a half later, when he was doing better, all of the sudden he runs in the house one night and goes straight to the sliding glass door and yells, "Heeeeere, Dukie Dukie~Duuuke, where ahhhhhhh you?"  It was the sweetest thing.  Again.. sad.  I had started casually mentioning to him that Duke died, whenever he would bring it up.. well, it occurred to me that he doesn't know what that word means.. so I took him aside and explained to him that "Died" means that Duke is gone.  He is not a dog anymore, we can't bring him back.  A light seemed to click on in his eyes.  Then for the first time he mentioned naming another dog something besides Duke.  Before that he would randomly say things like "better get anudder Duke" or "better get more Duke", and insisted that if we got a diff. dog, it would be named "like DUKE".  Well, after I told him what died meant he said we could name a new dog Buttons or Tiger. (he said this looking at the buttons on my shirt.. and I oftentimes call him Tiger when I talk to him.)

  Well, after this, things had been going swimmingly well.  He was back to himself, he was accepting that Duke was gone for good and could NOT come back...

  Then on Sunday afternoon, we were in the car and he spotted Duke's collar which had slid under the seat, left there from "the day" when we all took the last journey together in the car.  He got excited and said "Mommy!!  Duke's LEASH!!!!" So I said "..yes, that's his collar, remember when we had to take Duke to the Dr. and he died?  Mommy loved Duke, did you love Duke?"  He looked me square in the eyes and very adamantly said, "and I MISSSS him!!!!"  OK, I almost burst into tears that time, too, but was able to hold it back until after he went to bed that night.  It's hurting me to see this little boy grieve.

  Then that passed, and he was talking about getting another dog, telling me we better look at puppies, saying things here and there, etc. when he walks into the room yesterday (while I'm working on the little slide show I made.)  He saw the pictures and said "OH DOGGIES!!!...... Duke....." and I could see his posture change.  Well, I needed to get ready for church so I said , "let's turn this off for now, we can look later," and went to change my clothes and shoes.. he clung to the back of my skirt and was whining the whole time.  When I told him to stop whining, he burst into tears. When he stopped crying, I tried talking to him and he burst into tears again, muttering something about my shoes.  He was absolutely beside himself that I was changing my shoes.  Then through his tears, he insisted that I tie the sweater around my waist again. (I had been wearing it like that all day.)  He was acting so irrational and not like himself.. it had to be from seeing the pictures on the computer of him and Duke together.  That was all the change he could handle at that moment, and he wanted everything else to stay THE SAME!!!  So I wore my dirty shoes and sweater to church to console him.. When we got to church, Chris went to get him out of the truck and he started crying and wanted me to do it.. I asked him if he was okay, and if he was upset about Duke, and he looked at me with possibly the saddest look I've ever seen, like he might cry, and said "better bring him home.."  I sad we can't remember? and he just kept looking at me and said "(sniff sniff)bring him home".  OKAY.  We almost had to turn around and come back home b/c I was on the verge of the big ugly cry again.  It was soo sad.  He hung onto me for a long time.

  He seems to be doing okay today.. he got better after he got his mind off of it last night.  Today he found a little tiny plastic dog in his toybox and started calling it his Duke.  I'm gonna go along with that.  He needs something to direct his Duke feelings to.  I think we will end up with another dog sooner than we thought we would.  This little boy seems to need one.  He has never known our family to be without one.  Since he was born, our family has always been a mommy/daddy/dog and baby.

  When I put the pics together, I realized that it's no wonder, Duke was always right there by his side since he was born.  From sniffing him or licking him when he was a baby, to watching over him while he played as he got older.  All of those pics of them together were not posed, sure a few were, where Austin is propped next to him or something.  But the rest, that is just how it was.  He was next to Duke or Duke was next to him.  So, while I'm SURE that Duke is better off (he was suffering so much at the end), now and then I feel the overwhelming urge to cry, not for my loss, but for the loss that my little boy feels, and doesn't fully understand.  It's a process, and I'm sure he'll get over it soon, but in the meantime, I think we will be starting to think about a puppy..

  • 7:22 pm
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