Sunday, October 18, 2009

The Honorable Mention: A Preschool Teachers Blog


I recall being very young and finding a dead humming bird with my young sister and our next door neighbor, Angie. I insisted on holding a funeral a ceremony and I hummed the eulogy. I intermittently hushed two girls giggling like cartoon mice as I hummed solemnly with my eyes closed. They were age three and I was five-years-old. All I really knew was that you were 'supposed to do something for something that died’. After that, I went off and played but I remember wondering about the bird...where did he go from there? My Mom sent me an E-mail the other day and I remembered the bird, again.Everyone and every culture deals with death differently. Some cultures celebrate it-and in others, it’s taboo. Young children may not understand the complexities of a lifespan or cycle. But they have a strong sense of what is going on around them in their environment. Here is the post my Mom sent…Thanks Mom, I love you!

While walking along the sidewalk in front of his church, our minister heard the intoning of a prayer that nearly made his collar wilt. Apparently, his 5-year-old son and his playmates had found a dead robin. Feeling that proper burial should be performed, they had secured a small box and cotton batting, then dug a hole and made ready for the disposal of the deceased. The minister's son was chosen to say the appropriate prayers and with sonorous dignity intoned his version of what he thought his father always said: 'Glory be unto the Faaather, and unto the Sonnn, and into the hole he goooes.'