a sad farewell

This June 18th, T&T took the boys back to their house and found Black Panther {their orange tabby cat}, with a broken leg.  He must have been hit by a car & was not doing well.  Talon had to kill him to put him out of his misery.  Grayson was completely mortified.  He saw Black Panther with the hurt leg and then went in the house and just bawled for a while.  They got him calmed down and took the boys to Wendy's to stay till we got home to pick them up.  We pulled in and they were still there.  Grayson had started crying and throwing a fit when they got there and was on Taylor's lap and had an accident {noticing a definite pattern with distraughtness/accidents}, and she was cleaning him up in the bathroom.

I went in and he just wrapped his arms around my neck and cried.  I asked what was wrong and why he'd had an accident and he said he needed to go potty.  I asked why he hadn't gone to the bathroom and he said he wanted to play.  I explained again that we need to take a break from playing when we need to go potty, but could tell something else was up because he was just hugging me with his arms tight around my neck and his legs wrapped around my waist on my lap.  Then he said, "Black Panther got his leg hurt.  And he's buried in a hole in the ground..." and then he just lost it.  Completely sobbing and hugging me so tight.  And I cried a little with him because as much as I loathe cats, I kinda liked Black Panther because he was patient & let Grayson lug him around & play with him, but more because it is the worst thing ever to see your kids sad about anything.  This was something important to him and seems so definite and hard to understand.  I didn't know how much he could process or what his little mind was thinking but I gathered myself and told him that Black Panther lives with Heavenly Father now and he just cried and cried.  It was seriously one of the saddest things ever.  Finally he started feeling a bit better and decided to go work on the farm with Zac, which is a good thing.  We will miss Black Panther.  If cats really have 9 lives, please come back quickly!