Memory

I had a very interesting/strange experience with Matteo this evening.  After watching a video of a faun/baby deer, see it here, decided that I wanted to show him the cute little faun and the little girl.  At the end of the video the little girl leads the faun to the woods where the fragile faun nestles in and then the little girl walks away.  Matteo started to cry hysterically that the faun was being left alone.  At first he started to say the deer was sick, but I told him he was there and waiting for his mommy to pick him up.  Now last week we did try to help a cat who we thought was hurt by alerting his owners and Matteo was crying there too, but not like this tonight.  He was unconsolable and then after holding him and hugging and kissing him, he calmed down but wanted to see the deer again.  I started to show him the video again but again when he saw it he started to cry again, so I shut it down.

Matteo is a very sensitive little boy and does love animals, so on one level he was worried about the dear being left alone, just as he worries about our cats and that cat last week.  I tried to ask him what he was afraid of and he did say something about the deer being alone but then mumbled something through his tears that I couldn't understand.  Anyhow again I tried not to read into it too much but he has never reacted like this before, to this extent.

He was tired so know that when he's tired his reactions are more intense, as in something simple becomes a huge problem, so again thought that was what was happening.  So we went up to get him nestled into bed.  He likes blankets and sometimes asks for many...he has five.....tonight he wanted 4 and refused his Vietnam blanket.  He has never done that. While we were reading books, he mentioned the deer again.  At this point I started to cry too wondering on some deep level the deer being left alone triggered some kind of memory from Matteo's past of him being left alone. It was very hard to finish reading the stories without tears.

I know one day I will have to talk with him about his birth and the first few weeks of his life and there will be grief.  I may be totally off here, but tonight I can't help but think and feel that on some primal level that journey to deal with his loss and grief has started.