I can’t find a shovel, so I guess that this hoe will have to do. As I leave the garage, I feel a drop of rain. It’s been raining sporadically all day, and it’s about to start again. The weather fits my mood, which I find somewhat strange. I never liked Animal. But now he is dead, and that’s reason enough to be sad, I guess. And so, under the tree, I begin to scratch out his grave.
***
Saturday was a busy day. We had a birthday party to attend in the afternoon, and there were chores and errands to accomplish first. So our house was a bit chaotic. The children were outside, picking mulberries while I tried to feed Justice. Crystal remarked, “Saturdays are hard for you, aren’t they?” I thought about it, and she was right. “I have a hard time doing things with the children as a group,” I mused. “One on one works just fine, and I try to get to all of them. But as a group, I find it difficult sometimes.” This felt like a problem.
But then the phone rang. James wanted to borrow a game. No problem. Hopefully I can find it in the stacks of boxes that fill our library. We are moving, after all. But, if I can find it, you’re welcome to it.
No problem at all.
***
There are too many tree roots in the ground here, but this is where we have buried all the different pets that have died while living at this house. I know that there is a hamster grave around here somewhere, and I still remember burying Arianna’s bird. Plus, this part of the yard will probably remain undisturbed by playing children. So I persevere. Soon there is a narrow trench prepared to receive its victim. As I look up, I see Crystal coming out of the house, followed by forlorn children. In her hands, she bears a makeshift bier.
Animal.
***
The library is a wreck. We’re getting ready to move, and this room was the first to be packed. So, I poked around, trying to locate the game. My search took me near the guinea pig cage, which needed to be cleaned. As I wrinkled my nose, I saw that Animal wasn’t moving around in his cage. “Uh oh,” I thought. I knew that Animal’s health had been iffy recently, and I feared the worst. So, I found something and poked him. No movement.
I sighed. I didn’t have the time for this. “Crystal,” I called. “Animal is dead.”
Already a debate was raging in my head. We had been working on giving away these guinea pigs. If we didn’t tell the children, then there wouldn’t be a scene. There wouldn’t be the flood of emotion as we faced Death again. Just a quiet cover-up, and it would all be over.
But no. I knew better than that. I remembered a conversation with my daughter. “We are Ben-Ezras,” I had said. “That means that we are honest with each other.” At the time, I had especially meant being honest about death. Trying to slip Animal out of the house would make a hypocrite of me.
“We have to tell the children,” I said. Crystal nodded.
So we went outside, and we told them.
***
Crystal asks Isaac, “Do you want to put Animal in his grave?”
He shakes his head. “You do it.”
She lays the bier in the grave.
I start to bury him, then I pause. “Isaac, do you want to bury him?”
He shakes his head. “You do it.”
I look down at Animal. He lies underneath a blanket of tissue. He looks like he is asleep. In my mind, for just a second, I see all the graves that I have stood by. They flash through my mind in a swirling rush of pain.
Then I push the dirt over him.
***
Animal had belonged to Isaac, so I probably should have expected him to be upset. But I didn’t. I thought that he had already put Animal out of his mind. The guinea pigs weren’t really interesting to him anymore, and he had been easily persuaded to give Animal away. But when we told the children that Animal was dead, he was probably hurt the most.
He tried to hide in his work. There were still mulberries to pick, and so he turned back to the tree. When Crystal called to him, he said, “We still have to pick berries.” But I could see the tears in his eyes. So we called him back. Crystal held him. I held him. He didn’t cry, but his pain was all over his face.
“Why did Animal have to die?” he asked.
“Because God decided it was time for him to die.”
He paused to think.
“Why didn’t the other guinea pig die, too?” he asked.
Why me?
The only answer is to trust God. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less.
***
Crystal picks a rose for Isaac to put on the grave. Arianna gathers up some special stones to scatter around the grave. And we sit in the rain and I tell them the gospel.
This is death, I say. When we sin, this is what we are choosing. The Bible says that the wages of sin are death. I don’t think that we really believe this. Every day, we choose to walk away from God, and all we are doing is embracing this: a hole in the ground and a hole in our hearts.
I decide to take a dangerous step. One day, I say, all of us will be standing around another grave, but that time, they’ll be putting one of us into it. I don’t know who, but it will happen.
The rain falls.
Then I tell them about Jesus. God come as a man. I tell them that He died, just like Animal. And, just like Animal, they put him in a grave, closed it up, and walked away. But then, He came back alive, resurrected, free forever from death. And He promises that, one day, He will do the same for us. When the Bible speaks of a Christian dying, it calls it “falling asleep”. As one pastor remarked, “Christians don’t die; they nap.” One day, I say to them, we will all sleep, but then Jesus will come and wake us up. The grave is not the end of our story. So we pray and thank Jesus for the resurrection.
And the rain falls from heaven as we weep beneath the tree, by a guinea pig grave.
***
They don’t tell you that death is inconvenient. They don’t tell you about how it disrupts your schedule, and how it means that your projects won’t get done. For some reason, these are generally considered to be petty issues in the face of death. But it’s true. Saturday’s plans were thrown completely awry. We had to do a chore triage, discarding some of them as being no longer workable. But somehow, we got the important things done.
Like sitting on the bench in the family room, holding my crying children. This was not in my plans for this day. I didn’t even like the guinea pigs. But somehow that doesn’t seem important now. Death has passed through my home, and lesser things must fall by the wayside.
And, look, I ended up doing something with all of my children. I guess that’s something.