Swimming with death

He doesn't know…
I'm looking at my five-year-old son. 
He's laughing, playing with his best friend, Mason, at their swim lesson.
Unknowingly, my son is enjoying the last few minutes of his life without knowing death intimately.
Our cat, Rocky, died suddenly this morning.
He was 7.5 years old.
His liver failed him.
Looking back, there were signs;
But we were too busy.
That's our sedative:
We're too fucking busy.
In truth, for now at least,
I don't feel bad or guilty.
I accept death as a necessary trade for life.
That doesn't make it any less painful.

My wife and I couldn't sleep last night,
Waiting for the call from the vet to tell us he had died.
When it didn't come, I hoped that was a good sign.
I tried to go on my run this morning.
I was supposed to run 13 miles for my training –
I ran three.
I almost hyperventilated along the way.
Breath isn't usually an issue for me
As I’ve trained well over the past several months,
But I was thinking about Rocky.
Giuseppe is very excited this morning to be in level 2 of his swimming class.
He's a big boy, growing leaps and bounds.
He's about to grow into his first understanding of death.
Rocky has been around since before Giuseppe was born.
Rocky was always very sweet and patient with him and Francesca, his younger sister.
They always loved him.
But since he's been omnipresent in their lives
They don't know how to fully appreciate him.
To them, Rocky, Sophia (our dog), hell, all of us
Are eternal.
So now I prepare to shatter a belief.
I don't know if I'm ready for my son or daughter to understand that truth
But it doesn't matter what I'm ready for.
Neither life nor death wait for “ready”.
We are small,
So much smaller than we'd like to believe,
And yet we feel so much.
Giuseppe is looking at me from the pool.
Does he know?
He couldn't.
We talked about it in the car this morning on the way to his swim lesson.
I asked him what he would feel if Rocky didn't come back from the vets.
He said he'd be sad.
It's not a fair question, really;
How could he know how he'd feel about something he's ever experienced and that even the greatest artists, writers and philosophers can only swipe blindly at?
Nobody knows death,
And yet it knows all of us intimately.
He had a great swim lesson.
He did a great job.
It's time to tell him about death.