What Can Roadkill Teach Our Children?

As I pulled out of the driveway this morning, I was ripped from my peaceful reality by the sight of a freshly mangled possum, it's jaw ripped away and it's eyeballs ejected from their sockets like Maverick & Goose from the ill fated F-15 in Top Gun. Very graphic. Very vivid. And the next thought I had was of my wife and three year old daughter pulling from the driveway minutes behind me and being confronted by the same spray of entrails I had just seen. There were bound to be questions from our little chatter box in the back seat.

Until now, we've been able to get away with telling her that every dead animal on the road was sleeping. No doubt she considered it an odd place for these cuddly creatures to curl up for a nap, but she continued to believe our lies. Good girl. But this morning seemed different to me somehow. Can we really try to pass off this destroyed pile of meat as a sleeping animal? Closed eyes tend to be the instant association kids make with sleep. So what's the association with eyeballs that are blown from the head due to the crushing force of an SUV? Today's discovery has taken my timetable for the "death" conversation and bumped it up by at least 3-5 years. On second thought, she's just not ready. I've got it: I'll tell her that all of the flattened squirrels and chipmunks, all of the bloated raccoons and groundhogs, and all of the contorted and backwards bent deer she see on the side of the road are actually…..asleep. I love you Elsa.

-Love Daddy