Mortality is not a new topic for Tadhg, not by a long shot. However, it is heavy on Tadhg's mind because of the loss of one of our hens to a predator last night. I noticed that the flock numbered one short when I looked out into the chicken yard this morning when the boys were eating breakfast. I commented on it to Tadhg, who said helpfully that maybe she was still sleeping. I said maybe she was laying an egg or--since it looked as though the door had been inadvertently left open all night for the first time in months--a predator had gotten her. We talked for a while about predators. Prey. Pray vs. prey. Then I promptly forgot to go check on the missing hen later on (because life with toddlers does that to a person).
When Rundy discovered her body later on, the topic came up again tonight. There was a confluence of recent experiences informing Tadhg's thought process about the matter: a) I had just read the story of Jesus raising Jairus's daughter from the dead this morning and b) we've talked with Tadhg about Jesus's resurrection and c) I recently (more than once) have read to him a retelling of Grimms' The Wolf and the Seven Kids (in which Villainous Wolf ensnares and devours 6 out of 7 hapless baby goats, mother goat and surviving baby goat cut open said Villainous Wolf while he naps under a tree in a gluttonous stupor, and 6 eaten kids gambol out of his belly hale and hearty).
Tadhg: "I hope she is okay!"
I let him know that she was dead, and alas, it is a done deed.
Saucer-eyed. "Maybe she will come alive again. Or maybe the predator will spit her out!"
My mom was still at our house after her Monday-night-meal with us, and she was here for all of this as it transpired. As she was leaving, Tadhg was vigilantly looking out all the windows. As she put on her coat, he soberly intoned, "Watch out for predators..."
Losing a Grandma would surely be far worse than losing a hen.
I am too tired to recall the finer points of all of the conversation for the hour afterward in which he brushed his teeth, used the bathroom, and got ready for bed.
But there were a lot of finer points of the conversation--how predators like our cat, Munchkin, can sometimes be nice ("he sometimes scratches, but sometimes he just goes behind our stove to warm up"); how predators can be both predator AND prey ("Munchkin came back with a bite on his behind"); how mercy can be all entangled with judgment ("I hope that predator does not come back tonight so Daddy does not shoot it"); how judgment works when it isn't entangled with mercy ("Where are you gonna shoot it, Daddy, in the head or in the foot?"); how predators digest their prey ("Maybe it will poop out the chicken...maybe it will poop out the eyeballs..."); how grief works for chickens ("I wonder if they'll be sad"); and how he, Tadhg, figures into it all.
"I don't know if I want to go outside tomorrow with all the predators."
I gave him many assurances, including the fact that pretty much all of the predators around here would think HE was a predator. He smiled at that; the thought hadn't occurred to him.
"But I am not a predator! I am a boy." He went on to say that if he met the raccoon (we're pretty certain a raccoon is the culprit), he would be nice to it and pet it.
"And I think that the raccoon would be nice to me, too."
It's a hard world to figure out when you're just newly three.
(But LET ME TELL YOU. He's working hard at it.)
