Hard Conversations

Not that long ago we found out the our dog, Diamond, has an aggressive form of cancer and was given 3 to 6 months to live.  As hard as it was for us to receive this news, we had no idea what to tell the girls.  After keeping it from them for about a month, we decided on Sunday that we needed to tell them.  I mean really how to do explain that to a child without scaring them.

Grace has always tolerated the dog, but it was Ella who loves Diamond.  Maybe it is because she can boss the dog around and for the most part, the dog does what Ella wants.  Maybe it is because Ella likes taking care of people and she can take care of Diamond pretty well by her self.  Whatever the reason, we had no idea what we were going to tell them, especially Ella.   

We decided to have the conversation over breakfast so that I had all day to answer questions and see how they took it.  Grace got a little teary and Ella asked, "so the day she dies can we get a new dog?"  Keeping in mind that Diamond was my first baby, I was a little taken back.  Really kid, you are all about this dog and you are ready to just get a new one?  As the day went on she talked more and more about Diamond and would we know when she did not feel good and could we take care of her.  This made me feel a little better.  Grace actually took some time to snuggle by Diamond (that is about as good as it gets with her).  So telling them turned out not to be so bad.  But, lesson learned, they girls would have been fine had the day Diamond passed we just told them and moved on.