My first Slice of Life post!
Last week, my eleven-year-old grandson's turtle died.
I had found his turtle six years ago on my screened-in porch when I shook out a blanket. And out plopped a turtle about the size of a quarter.
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| Baby Patio |
How did it get there? I would leave the screen door cracked open for a stray mommy cat who would seek shelter for her and her babies at night. I suspect she brought this itty bitty turtle onto my porch.
We named her Patio.
We had her for a year before she got too big, so we gave her a new home with my eldest daughter. Sometime later, Patio found her forever home with my grandkids, and my oldest grandson claimed her as his. My grandsons have a few other turtles and love them all so much. So much, in fact, that the illustrations for my picture book Slow Poke are of my grandsons and their turtles.
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| Illustration from Slow Poke. Patio is on the right. |
My grandson came home from school last Wednesday to find his buddy had passed away. They noticed she had started to show signs of illness two nights prior and ordered medicine, but she wouldn't hold out for it, which would arrive the next day.
My grandson buried Patio in their yard. He tied two pieces from a palm branch together into a cross to mark her grave and wrapped his favorite red and black earbuds around its base. Next to the cross, he set a large, empty container of turtle food in the dirt. And he added a few painted stones he collected from #BrevardRocks, a movement in our county that involves people painting and hiding rocks everywhere and anywhere for others to find.
He drew a picture of Patio that said, "R.I.P. Patio. We love you very, very much." He taped this drawing on the wall then set their other three turtles in front of it as if they were paying their respects. He took a picture of this to have forever on his phone.
They say a dog is a man's best friend, but maybe a turtle is a boy's best friend. Or at least that was the case for this little boy.
