Touchy Topic

As a result of my mother's death, during the course of my motherhood I have had a very difficult relationship with the topic of death and discussing it with my children. In any capacity. My whole strategy up until very recently has been complete, sheer avoidance. This even applies to simple things like plant and animal life we'd observed or in stories we might read because I knew that that would lead to inferences and/or questions about people and that was exactly what I'd been afraid of and had been trying to avoid. I would (and still do) do anything to avoid saying that my mother, Gramma Cheryl, is dead.

Largely, this is 1-because I just don't like saying that and thinking that and 2-I don't want my children thinking that and 3-because I, as a Catholic, don't believe it. Nobody ever really dies, know what I mean?

So, that's where I sat. I wasn't comfortable with any of it. I didn't feel good about any of it. I also knew that I wouldn't be able to keep it up for very much longer and dreaded and worried about how it would all come to light for my boys.

...

Recently we were visiting my Gramma and Little Wideawake was admiring some pictures that she had hanging on the wall. One of the people he inquired about was her mother, my great-grandmother, who had passed away almost ten years ago. After being told that the woman in the picture was his great-great grandmother, he asked where she was. My Gramma answered him that she died a long time ago.

We all pretty much left it at that, but I could tell that he was still processing this new information. I knew I had been proved right when the questions started up the next day. The time had arrived. I had some explaining to do.

When he asked why she was dead, I told him that wasn't really dead because when God makes people he gives everybody two parts. We get our bodies, but we also get our spirits, our souls, the part that makes us alive, our bodies alive. And that she "wasn't alive anymore" because her body stopped working. And even when our bodies stop working we aren't really dead because our spirits never die, they're alive forever. And if you live your life with God and for God once your body stops working your spirit gets to go to Heaven and live with God there forever.

I really felt like that was one of those Spirit-inspired moments/conversations. I felt optimistic and confident that I'd explained a huge Truth to them in a way they could understand, and at the same time, laid a good foundation and given them a solid framework for understanding when the time comes to talk about where Gramma Cheryl is.

And (at least part of) it stuck. Tonight when I was putting Honeybun to bed he told me that his body had stopped working and that he needed to go up to Heaven to live with God so that God could fix his tummy.

Oh, I love little children.