Life lessons

Last Sunday morning we had to say good-bye to our family pet. Tigger has been with me since right after I graduated from nursing school. He was a friendly, affectionate, sweet cat and he brought a lot of joy to our family. We miss him very much.

Lauren has had many questions about "where" Tigger is and what happens when some one passes away. We have had some good conversations about this and she seems to take our simple but honest answers to heart. She has drawn some pictures of Tigger and wrote a short note to him (which says his name and "I (heart) U")that she thought of completely on her own. We talk every day about how much we miss him and how we still have pictures and memories to recall the fun times we had. I feel like for a 3 1/2 year old, she is doing pretty well with the loss. Helping her go through the process of grieving helps me cope with it too, I think.

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures of Lauren and Tigger.