Franki and Schatz

It’s as if Franki and Schatzchen are communicating.  She knows there’s nothing to talk about…She and Schatzchen were great buddies, she rarely left him alone.  As we pulled in the driveway on our way home from our trip, Franki asked, “where’s Schatzchen”?  I was surprised she hadn’t asked about him before because he’s usually sitting in the car beside her.  I responded, “oh, he went to see his friends”.  Jack and I had already agreed that we would keep it simple and we would answer her questions honestly, but simply.  That answer satisfied her and we walked in the door and there were no more questions.  Franki is a very observant child…she notices slight differences in shoelaces on shoes that are otherwise identical; she notices Hoppy’s hair cut; she notices emblems on vehicles and how they match mommy’s car or daddy’s car, or Hoppy’s car.  She notices when I’ve placed something in a different location in the house, or if something is not where it usually is.  So when we entered the house, I expected she would notice and comment on Schatzchen’s missing table and food bowls; or where his bed, which usually lays in our living room was; and where had his bed gone that was in our bedroom?  But no….nothing.  She hasn’t even asked her usual question when she gets up in the morning , “where’s Schatzchen”?  It’s as if there are no questions to be asked; it’s as if there’s nothing to be grieved, nothing to be missed, nothing to look back upon.  It reminds me of when Zeiger, a dog I had with Schatzchen, was euthanized.  Once Zeiger had stopped breathing, Schatzchen sniffed him, and walked away.  No drama, no change in attitude, no moping around.  That was all he needed to know.  This situation seems similar and it makes me wonder what Franki knows and senses.   I know that suffering or grief is a human condition that we experience as a result of a perceived sense of loss, and Franki is still close enough to her knowing that there is no loss, no real separation between spirit and physical.  She hasn’t yet been trained to be aware of that separation so much and I sense that she knows that even though she can’t see Schatz, he’s still around.  I believe that as well, but certainly I am very much aware of his physical absence in my environment.  I’ve been trained to observe my reality – what I can see, hear, taste, touch and smell, and she still operates from imagination and blurs the lines between “reality” and imaginary.   And so, once again, our little girl is leading the way and demonstrating that there need not be sadness when a friend changes form and changes focus from one to another.  Schatzchen’s consciousness still is; he’s just not in the form that I’m accustomed to identifying as Schatzchen.  I believe that Franki knows that and that she and Schatzchen are conspiring to show me the way.