My earliest encounter with death came with Gerbie, a gerbil I got from a kid at school who didn’t want him anymore. Shortly after he came into my life, Gerbie stopped eating and was barely moving. I can’t be sure because we didn’t have any real talk about Gerbie’s life or death. After becoming a parent of two boys, I thought about my experiences as a kid and resolved to never avoid dealing with death or make dying weird for them. My advice would be: Talk to your kid about dead pets and how much joy they brought to you.