Too soon, too soon
Thursday, March 10, 2011We finally went to Egypt today. After we practiced piano, read some Oz, straightened some things around the house, went to story time, shelved in the library sale room, exercised, had lunch, and made dinner (for the crockpot), we finally entered Egypt. And in so doing talked about the difference between ancient and modern. Then we read some of the myths or stories of Ancient Egypt. Then we talked about the pryamids and about mummies. And you know what? That's actually a lot of talk about death. Mummies are dead, and all those ancient people are dead, and Seth actually murdered Osiris. Sometimes I plan things through very carefully...and then miss the forest for the trees, as I found out later in the day.
It was a good day here, and I don't mind dark and rainy days, but by evening the rain was snow again and the temperatures were falling. I look towards the spring flowers still adorning our table after our weekend party (which failed to actually summon spring) to keep my spirits up, but I miss last night's fog. Fog is mysterious and allows you to believe you are anywhere on earth. Anywhere, because suddenly you have no neighbors. Plus it reminds you that the air is warm enough to hold moisture, and the melting snow is filling it to the gills (ha ha).
Late in the day, after some extra cleaning and finally shrinking our table back to size after the dinner party, I checked on Calvin, who was in the other room after having finished his own chores of emptying the trashes (tomorrow is garbage day) and feeding the pets. He was "writing" a story as part of his "acting out a story" (how he refers to all of his play acting or pretending) about a cat who had been killed. The people who loved the cat very much didn't know what had happened and he was writing a sort of memoir so that they would, and so that the cat could be remembered.
Clearly he is thinking deeply now about death, and his story is reminiscent of one we (very mistakenly) saw on a video about rhinos last week, when three of the rhinos were tragically killed by poachers (and if I had known that was part of the video rated for kids his age I would never in a million years have borrowed it from the library as part of our Africa exploration). We talked about this cat, the circumstances of his death, and about the people who loved him, for quite some time. Calvin was clearly sad, affected. I was horrified.
He is working through some things that definitely bothered him, and now I have to worry that I have erred irreversibly. Would talking about death with regard to Egyptology have been so bad if it was not coming immediately after that oops of a video about rhinos? Would the video about rhinos have been given a second thought if it had not been followed up by talk of mummies? My instinct tells me that regardless this is healthy development—finding a way to work through an upsetting issue by "writing" about it, something he used to do by "interacting" with his imaginary friend, Mouse. But my heart tells me it is broken. Is he not too young to have to work through such misfortunes? I cannot protect him forever, but wouldn't it have been okay at least until he was five?
Reader Comments (2)
All is well.