There's been a death. As an adult you acknowledge the loss and go on with your life. But children are more emotionally involved. No matter how trivial the relationship, their feelings of loss can be extremely painful.

Legs (as he was nicknamed) died suddenly. He was my son's friend. My husband, Mark, underestimated the depth of Evan's feelings. Mark was sure that a quick discussion about life and death was all that Evan needed. Mark was wrong.

Evan was determined that the burial had to be as amazing as his friend Legs. In fact, he insisted that the entire family participate.

Have I mentioned that Legs was Evan's pet crawdad.

I'm sure you're wondering why Evan had a pet crawdad. Evan actually asked for a snake the day he went with his dad to the pet store. Somehow Mark convinced Evan that a pet crawdad was cooler than a pet snake. Mark is a car salesman, enough said.

There would be no flushing down the toilet for Legs. He was a special, amazing crawfish. Evan decided that he wanted to mummify Legs. He suggested we use toilet paper. He also wanted legs to have a gold sarcophagus. Fortunately, he accepted my suggestion that we build it out of aluminum foil. Evan used a permanent marker to decorate the cover with his version of hieroglyphics.

The hieroglyphics included an illustration of Legs and "the rules." The rules state that anyone who opens the tomb will be cursed. According to Evan, the only way to break the curse is to eat shrimp. His reasoning is that crawfish and shrimp are closely related.

Because this was an Egyptian funeral Evan insisted that Legs be buried in sand. Lucky for us, we had sand left over in an old, unused sandbox. At 10:30 pm the entire family retreated to the back yard to lay Legs to rest. I am sure this just confirms the neighbors' suspicions that we are not sane.

Tomorrow, Evan and I (at his insistence) will build some traps around the burial site and make some fake snakes to scare off potential grave robbers like his aunt Tia (that's a story for another time.)

The good news is that Evan feels much better about the loss of his friend and life will go on.