Moth ni Gogol: A lesson on death boxes.

Actually it's close to impossible to make a decent a taxidermy of a moth sans the chemicals. A week after its death, the moth starts to disintegrate if not properly treated/preserved. I won't go into the details of that as i am not a taxidermy expert...

But this is how this all happened...

In late October i brought Gogol to the cemetery to familiarize himself with the Pista Minatay tradition. I also wanted him to experience how it's like cleaning tombs as we were there to clean my grandmother's tomb in preparation for the November 1 All Saint's Day. The All Soul's Day is officially set on November 2 but it has been a tradition in our town to collectively visit the cemetery on the first of November.

To prepare his curious brain for the impending information overload (and of course to save myself from having to answer too many questions), on our way to the cemetery, i told him the story of death and of dead people being laid to rest in boxes. Expectedly, my story raised more questions than i could possibly answer so to prevent further confusion (and more tall tales from me), I resorted to this: Dead people died because they drank dirty water and had diarrhea and now they have to sleep in boxes in the cemetery. forever. end. of. story.

Meanwhile the kid got the horror of his life imagining that if he ate with dirty hands or drank dirty water he'd die from diarrhea and had to sleep in one of those boxes. forever. So somehow that cemetery trip did something good to us--he developed the habit of hand washing and drinking only from his own glass.

One morning after that short vacation cum cemetery visit, and some days after we're back to the City, i found an injured moth in our room. I did try to keep it inside the house and away from gogol (because last i heard, he unintentionally mashed a spider and wailed realizing he killed it), hoping it will recuperate on its own (because i didn't know how to provide care for an injured moth, sorry mothy). and it died.

and i found the chance to tell gogol more about death and dying and laying things to rest.

and was confronted by the question: "If i die, i will not fit in that box, nanay." He looked really worried. I can't remember how i survived that moment. maybe i told him, "We'll get you a bigger box."

With the small black box that used to contain japanese pastries, gogol and i carefully laid a piece of tissue for the moth to lay on. He held in his open palms 2 yellow push pins (which i realized were too big to use on the moth) as i carefully spread its wings. carefully, very carefully i fixed the delicate wings on the piece of cork glued to the box (covered by teh tissue) using the two push pins. A pen-type correction fluid was used to label the box while a blue pen with colored metallic ink was used in the label inside the box. 

Gogol bragged it for couple of days to people in the house. "Look at my moth! It's dead."

and then he forgets.

Good for him.