the first of many

Yesterday Wyatt’s pet frog, Tack, died. We could tell in the last few days that he wasn’t himself and he wasn’t eating. We knew his time would end soon and we started preparing Wyatt for it. These are his little buddies: Tack and Rokey. He named them. We let him. He got them last year on his birthday as a gift from some good friends of ours. This is what is awesome about these frogs: thy are fed two tiny pellets of food once or so a week AND we have never cleaned their water! We were probably suppose to but it’s sort of it’s own ecosystem and they honestly were probably not suppose to live as long as they did/have. They are the most low maintenance pet ever! And to be honest we all liked them. They became part of the family and they were fun to watch “swim” around. Wyatt never tried taking them out {or they would die} and did a great job loving them.

Ok, so I know all this sounds silly and most of it is funny. Really, they are just some frogs. But when I found Tack upside down yesterday evening, I knew this would be hard to break the news to Wyatt. He was at Andy’s office “working” with Daddy and I made the phone call to Andy to let him know what happened. When they got home we told Wyatt we needed to talk to him about Tack. He said… is he dead? And we told him yes. And he looked at him in his “tank” and then the innocent quiet tears came. Then anger. Then more tears. And then me holding him. It was so hard not to cry. And so we cried. We held him. And we talked to him about when we had pets in the past that died and how hard that was for us. Then that brought back memories and that was sad. Then we told him that God loves him and our pets and that it is going to be ok and God will comfort you.

I started thinking, wow this is just a frog, then Rokey will die and this is just the beginning. We will have more pets that die and people that we love die. It’s just part of life. Part of living…is dying. Nothing lasts forever. Except Christ. Except eternity with Him. And that is our prayer for our children. That they would come to know the Lord at an early age. To never stop asking questions and to have a home full of love, full of Jesus.

We gave Wyatt the option to flush Tack down the toilet, throw him away, or bury him. And of course his choice was to bury him. So this afternoon when Andy gets home the digging will begin. And then I’m sure we’ll do it again when Rokey dies. However, our backyard will soon be completely dug up because we are redoing it {it never was finished when we moved} and that concerns me a little that we will dig up the remains of our frogs. Hmmm.