Sleep peacefully, little chick

Last night I spent a few hours cradling a tiny baby chick in my hand in the vain hope that I could make it better. Even though the logical part of my brain knew that it was too little and weak to survive, the mothering part of me was trying desperately to convey enough love and warmth to help the baby either come back to chirping life, or pass away peacefully. As long as she was breathing I held some hope she was just really, really tired - at one point she even gave a few little cheeps. Ever the optimist, I sat with Christian on the couch, held my chick and watched telly, but I couldn't tell you which program was on the box. Around 11pm, Maisie began to cry and she was quite distressed as she appeared to be coming down with a cold. Daddy's cuddles wouldn't cut it, so I had little choice but to relinquish my feathered baby and snuggle my blonde, blue-eyed baby to comfort her. Christian held Chick for a while, and in the end her breathing was pretty stable and she seemed calm, so we put her back into the box with the other chicks and watched her be surrounded by her brothers and sisters. They all seemed so big and energetic compared to our little one that I wondered had there always been such a huge difference? Or had she diminished so much that she would never catch up?

With all the chicks huddled under the heat lamp and Maisie feeding hungrily at the breast, I tried to sleep. But the snorting and snuffling of my baby with her snotty nose, and the thought of Chick slowly dying outside my bedroom door prevented any real rest. Maisie was so disturbed throughout the night that I gave up on trying to settle her in her own cot and just let her sleep in our bed all night - something I had never done with any of our kids. By doing this, I did not get out of bed at all, and therefore did not check on Chick between midnight and 6am. By the time Christian got up for work, Maisie was breathing easily in the middle of the bed. My poor little Chick, though, was not breathing any more.

When I went to check on her and feed the other chicks, her tiny, fluffy little body was burrowed down into the sawdust. Her eyelids were closed and she was cool to the touch. The other chicks were no longer huddled around her, but were avoiding her body. Jack came over to the box and asked if the others had stood on her. I asked him, "Do you know how you think, and feel things, and love people? You know how you decide to do things, and like things and make your body move and run and jump?" "Yes, Mummy," he said gravely. "Well, that's your soul," I replied. "And when you die, your soul leaves your body and goes to Heaven." He considered that for a moment, looked carefully at the dead chick, and said,"But then you come back again, right?" "No honey, once you go to Heaven you can't come back. But she's not in pain anymore, she can't feel anything. It's like being asleep but you don't wake up" I said. He looked once again at Chick and exclaimed, "Oh Mum! Her leg is dead too!" I explained that all of her body was dead and didn't work anymore, but it didn't hurt. "Mum?" "Yes, Jack?" "Can you make breakfast now?"

Later on this morning, Jack asked if the chick had come back to life again. I said no, she hadn't, and did he remember where her soul had gone? "Sydney?" he said, hopefully. "Ah no, darling, not Sydney. Her soul has gone to Heaven." "And she won't come back again?" "No sweetie. Once your soul has gone to Heaven, your body doesn't work anymore. " It was at this point I realised that we might need to have a little burial for our baby chick, if only to illustrate how death can be dignified and gentle, if you are lucky. I told Jack we would wait for Daddy to come home and then we would bury our chick. "In the floor?" he asked. "No, in the ground outside" I said. "And then she will be alive again!" he said cheerfully. I sat him on my lap and started to explain again how she wouldn't feel any pain anymore, and that she was in a happy place, but she was dead and wouldn't be coming alive again (I thought I might leave conversations about reincarnation for another day...). "Mummy?" "Yes, Jack?" "Can I go outside on the trampoline?"

While the kids played happily, I put the chick's cold little body into some tissues and a paper bag. I decided to wait for Christian to come home for the burial, as I didn't fancy keeping the two dogs and the feral roosters away while I dug a hole with three kids in tow (although I'm sure the possibilities for the comic side of this would be many!!) I'm not sure how well I dealt with all of this today. I knew I wanted to be honest with Jack without scaring him, and to be very truthful, I'm a bit relieved that his first experience of death was with a little animal as opposed to a beloved great-grandparent. However, when I held Chick in my hand last night, I knew she was dying, and I think the person who had the hardest time of all, was me. I had absolutely no control over Chick's life or death and just had to let Nature take it's course. Her death was not violent, and did not appear to be painful, and I know that many small animals die in the first few days of life simply because they are not born strong enough. But it's not often that we have absolutely no control over a situation, and in this case I knew that explaining what had happened to our chicken to my young son would possibly be the hardest part.

I'm still not sure exactly how much Jack understands. I know that when the time comes to bury Chick tonight, most likely I will cry a little. I don't think that's a bad thing. And as sad as I am for poor little Chick, I am grateful that my children's first knowledge of death was quiet and gentle. They have not had to grapple with strong emotions of separation, or watch their parents deal with horrendous grief. (Actually, I mentioned to my husband last night that we were lucky this was the first time we would have to explain death, as I was very fortunate to survive post-natal complications after Maisie's birth. He must have been thinking about this, because he said, very quietly, "I know.") I know we will show our children how to handle the little body with kindness, and bury her with dignity. We will tell them why it is important to bury our dead, and to learn from their deaths. And with any luck, we will avoid having to do anything like this again for a very, very long time. And when we do, I hope that I will have learned how to deal with it better than I did this time. Sleep peacefully, little chick. Thank you for sharing your little life with my children and I. We are the richer for it.