I guess by now you have all heard that Steve Irwin, AKA The Crocodile Hunter, died yesterday morning after being stung by a stingray. Hubby told me when he came home from work yesterday afternoon and, I fully admit, I thought he was mucking around or about to tell me some really bad-taste joke. I even doubted him so much that I went and checked on one of the news links from my home page. And then, even though I had read it myself, I still didn’t quite believe it. It’s funny (in a strange way) that the death of someone who was such a risk-taker should come as such a shock. Maybe because it was a stingray, not a crocodile or a snake or something that we were used to seeing him with.
I wasn’t a big fan of Steve Irwin but Offspring #1 had watched Wiggles Safari with “big Steve Irwin, crocodile hunter, big Steve Irwin, action man” many times and pointed him out on every Toyota ad on the tv or whenever he saw him in a magazine. Hubby and I were deciding how to, and even if we would, break the news to Offspring #1 when the 6pm news took care of that decision for us :( We simplified it as much as we could without covering it up and told #1 that Steve had been swimming with a very big dangerous fish and that the fish had become frightened and accidentally poked him in the chest with its tail. That hurt his heart and stopped it from working and then he died. Poor #1 was quite disturbed by the whole thing. He has been asking questions about death and why people had died for a couple of months and we have been answering them fairly matter-of-factly but this one sent him spinning. He wanted to know if we could still see Steve on the Wiggles DVD or if he wouldn’t be on it anymore because he was dead. So, no real concept of death just the understanding that if someone has died they aren’t there anymore. He took a long time to settle into bed and kept calling us back to ask more questions. The final time was to tell me that he couldn’t fall asleep because he kept ‘”wishing about Steve Irwin, crocodile hunter”. When I asked if he meant thinking about instead of wishing about he said “No Mum, I know what thinking about means. I keep wishing about him.” I asked him what he meant and he said “I keep wishing that he didn’t die.” It’s really hard as a Mummy to watch him struggle to understand this and the selfish part of me is glad that he gets to “practise” dealing with the death of someone he knew and loved from afar before he has to deal with it in his real life. He seemed more settled this morning although he still asked a few questions – the most notable being: “Is Steve Irwin still dead?” Yes buddy, he is.
No question today. Just sympathy for Steve Irwin’s family and those who loved him.
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