Screwed.

Written many years ago... Posting it today was  prompted by the bug my 'little darling' thought she killed on her way into a voice lesson.  (So much for focusing on her lesson...)

Charlee walked up to me with a distraught face.  In her hands was the old fashioned jelly jar I gave her to collect bugs.  I found it at Dee’s.  Of course, it originally had jelly in it.  Blueberry.  Actually the best blueberry jelly I have ever tasted.  The jar was just part of an overall customer enticing plan... which worked.  I bought the jelly.

The jar now has holes in the lid.  It has already housed a number of inhabitants... and I for one, can’t wait for those wonderful summer nights when the fire flies fill our yard.  The nostalgic picture I have in my mind includes these very jars.

But for the moment, Charlee held her jar, not with joy and enlightenment, but with sorrow.  She handed it to me and asked me to look closer.  I started looking for the flying ant we had caught earlier. Thankfully, it wasn’t a termite as originally thought.  Then I reminded her, and myself, that we let the ant go.  ‘No’ She corrected me.  ‘Look, on the cap.’  I turned the cap over and saw, caught in the threaded rings, the remains of something. I t was no longer recognizable.  This was not good.  Charlee never kills anything.  We even have a hard time when it comes to mosquitos.  It wasn’t until last summer that she let us kill them.  Now, as I tried to figure out what I was looking at, she started to sulk. She was waiting for me to say something.  I knew she wanted me to tell her the bug was okay, but that was not going to happen.  There was no chance for this bug.  My silence was telling her all she needed to know. The bug was squished.

Charlee walked away.  She didn’t say a word.  Neither did I.  She gets very upset when anything suffers or dies.  She came back and asked me to please take the bug off the cap.  She didn’t want to see what she had done, the visual reminder was too much for her.  As well, she wanted her jar back.  She still didn’t say anything, however, she was way too solemn.

I figured I would just let her work thru this in her own way.  It is one of life’s little lessons.  One that is better learned on a bug than any other alternatives.

A few minutes later, I searched her out.  She was sitting quietly.  I asked ‘How are you doing?  Are you okay?’  She looked at me with a quivering bottom lip, her eyes giving away the pain she was going through.  I felt so bad for her.  I know this is about a bug, but her pain was real.  How my daughter became so compassionate and empathetic is beyond me.  But here she was.  Now what!?I was at a loss as to how to console her.  As I stood there, she could bear no more.  The tears began to fall, and with each one she spoke.

‘I didn’t mean to hurt it!  And I killed it.  I never killed anything.  Now I did!  I killed it!  The POOR bug.  It was a beautiful beetle.  I shouldn’t have picked it up with the cap!  Why did I have to do that?!’

She was so upset.  Part of me was smiling, because my daughter struck me as so loving and sweet. Here she was crying over the death of a bug.  No bug has ever been so mourned.  In actuality this was a lucky bug.  Oh, to be so loved by such a wonderful human being.

‘Charlee I don’t know what to say.  You didn’t mean to do it.  Sometimes things happen that we can’t help.  Maybe it was sick or dead already.’

I was trying anything...

‘Mommy, I killed the bug. It was alive. Its legs were moving. I saw them, I looked.’  Major emphasis on the ‘I.’  I believed her.  After all, Charlee is quizzical when it comes to nature.  We just got finished with butterflies and moths... now were onto flying ants and, apparently, beetles.  Each creature requires a Google search.  We find out where it lives, what it eats, how long it lives... The butterflies only lived for a few weeks.  So we kept them for two, Charlee’s orders.  ‘We can’t keep them their entire life in a cage.  We will watch them for half their life, then let them go so they can fly around and see the world.’  She waved her hands in the air, indicating her hope for her butterfly’s beautiful dancing flight. ‘Maybe even meet a friend and make babies...’ It was fun when release day finally came.  I bet no one was more happy than the butterfly, but it was a close tie.

‘Honey, whatever happened to the bug, it’s over. He isn’t in any more pain.’  I thought - hoped - this would end her sympathetic suffering... but all she did is look at me as though I was ridiculous and crazy.  How could I not understand what this bug went through!?  In an attempt to fully impress upon me, the full magnitude of what was suffered, she looked straight into my eyes and wailed ‘MOM, IT WAS SCREWED!!!’

I tried really hard to keep her pain in mind... however, the fact that the bug ‘was screwed’ was an understatement, and so totally out of the mouths of babes.  I had to walk away so she would not see me choking back the laughter.  I am a horrible mother..... emphasis on the ‘I’.