Pet Funeral

Picture of the Day for 8/26/2012. We have a tradition (which some people think is sweet while other people see it as kind of creepy) in our family that any small pets who have died get a little pet funeral and are buried underneath the tree in my sister Paula's front yard. It's kind of a spectacle and I'm sure the neighbors wonder what on earth is going on.

My parakeet Bebe died in 2009 and we finally got around to burying her today. (You don't want to know where I've been storing her for the past three years.) My great-niece Hayley is shown holding the box holding Bebe. I read the following bird poem, Hope, by Emily Dickinson:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

My niece Corinne's guinea pig, Piggins, died unexpectedly last week so he was buried as well. I was surprised the family was actually sad about Piggins' demise since he was ill-tempered and we swear he had been plotting his escape so he could gnaw the face off the evil humans who had been keeping his captive. Corinne also read a poem appropriate for the occasion and after that we sang a song.

My brother-in-law then declared the service over which made me laugh since the phrasing kind of reminded me of how the president of the IOC formally closes each Olympics by saying "I declare the Games of the Olympic Winter/Summer games closed."