'Can I See in the Box?'

Well, we buried Manky Cat yesterday. I was in two minds whether to have Maia there or not, and had no idea how I was going to explain the whole thing to her. He had gone to cat heaven? He had just gone to sleep for a very long time?

I didn't want to get into the whole heaven thing, as we aren't planning on bringing her up in a faith, and I didn't want her to think that Cats That Go To Sleep get put in boxes and buried the garden.

So we just told her that he had died, and he wasn't coming back, and we were going to say goodbye to him now. She obliged, very cheerfully shouting out 'Goodbye Manky Cat!'

Unfortunately she followed it up with the somewhat less appropriate 'Can I see in the box?'

Although I was happy to introduce her to the vague idea of death, I didn't think we needed to go so far as a visual demonstration, so we made excuses and brought her inside for a glass of milk instead.