Last year Ben got a little too excited about the chicken coop building project and made more nesting boxes than we needed. This spring we bought five more chicks to, hopefully, fill up those nesting boxes. Unfortunately, we may have come up a little short again.
Two of the five chicks died. A day after we bought them.
Unfortunately, Lincoln's chick, affectionately called Fun Chick, was among the deceased. It was a sad day. As Lincoln is the tender-heart of the family, you can imagine the sackcloth and ashes at our house.
It was only fitting, as a way to help Lincoln with closure, to hold a funeral. It was Sunday, so naturally our thoughts were lofty and reverent to begin with. Um.
Lincoln made the preparations. He found a little box, lined it with grass, and gently placed the little chicks inside. He picked a spot next to the coop for the burial so they would be close to their family come resurrection day. All took a turn with the shovel and Lincoln set the box in the ground, deep down, so Charlie-the-dog wouldn't sniff it out and exhume our little friends.
We sang "Families Can Be Together Forever." Some were more solemn than others, as you can imagine. On the way into the house Lincoln said to me that he tried really hard to not cry.
A few minutes later he found me in the kitchen making dinner. He crumbled into my arms. The tears. We sat by the stove and let the tears flow. He was going to miss Fun Chick. And then a quote passed through my mind from The Mill on the Floss, "We should not pooh-pooh the griefs of our children."
George Eliot was right.
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