By Sonya Fladun
I’VE been debating whether to tell the children the truth (even though it will break their hearts) or squib it and go with the “white lie” option. Let me explain. 
Canberra has to be Possum Central. We had lots of possums where I lived in Adelaide when I was growing up, but it was nothing like the marsupial circus that cavorts around Canberra’s inner-north suburbs. 
Now, I love possums; those pink noses, bright eyes and bushy tails. Of course, they can be a major nuisance – especially when they’ve moved into the roof, hang out with lots of other possums and host all-night rave parties. Then there’s the little matter of their toilet habits and those tell-tale yellow patches that start to appear through the ceiling. 
Possums can also be disturbingly regular in their habits. Take the possum that, for the last three years, has a thumping good scratch every morning at three o’clock on my widow sill. And there’s the possum that regularly sits in a tree and just looks unblinking into our living room like a real psycho possum (if I ever see it with a camera, I’m calling the cops).
Still, I wouldn’t want our possums to move out. In fact, we have a purpose-built possum box out the back and each year a possum makes a home in it and has a baby possum. The kids love to feed them a bit of fruit and we get to watch them grow up. 
The other week we had to undertake the major possum rescue operation. The poor thing had got its leg badly caught on a tree branch and was found by our neighbour’s little boy, hanging upside down, sort-of blowing in the wind,
It’s probably more accurate to say it was the ranger from ACT Parks and Wildlife who actually undertook the rescue, but if you listen to my five-year-old boy’s retelling of events, he did the whole thing, single handed – in his imagination simultaneously sawing down the tree and catching the possum in a blanket. 
Anyway the poor possum was rushed off to the vet, but sadly its back legs had somehow become paralysed and it had to be euthanased.
I know it is important that children learn about death and my husband was all for telling the children the cold, hard truth (be it as gently as possible). But I couldn’t. Now, of course, my five-year-old is eagerly awaiting the return of “my possum”. Have I done the right thing? I’m not sure, but I figure if we tell children there is a Santa Claus, an Easter Bunny and fairies at the bottom of the garden, why can’t I go with a possum who any day now will be scampering along the power lines to make its way home?