Megan is at the age where she asks a lot of questions. I'm never quite sure what depth of answer to give to her. On the one side, I don't want to go into so much detail that she stops listening and goes "oh". On the other, I don't want to over simplify things. So the other day when I was reading the newspaper article about Haiti, and Megan started asking questions, I decided to give her the most honest answers I could, shying away from actually mentioning death, dead people, etc. That ended up in a long series of questions, each more detailed then the next. Why did they get hurt? Who got hurt? Why does the earth shake? Who's going to help them? Why do they need water?
Those interactions are always tricky, because you never know what Megan might latch on to. For example, recently when one of my Mom's cat's died, I explained to Megan how Pepper died because he was old. This was followed by a week long asking of "Where is Pepper?" and "But I didn't want Pepper to die!" (with some sad crying as well).
Tonight was another one that has come up a few times, maybe a half dozen times total. Megan asked me, "Where is your Daddy?". That is a tough one. Tonight when she asked, I went with a new answer of "He is no longer with us." I don't think she caught on to what I meant by that, but I was just too afraid to use any form of the "D" word.
If I were to stop and think hard about the fact that my daughters will never know Papa Mike, it makes me pretty damn sad. That's probably why I try not to think about it. Hell, I even wish Andrea could have met him. Because despite his flaws, for he had his share, just like me, he was a kind, gentle, loving soul. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I'm sure he would have loved to be a Papa for three lovely girls after being a father of two unruly boys.
Maybe I'll have my Mom go through and collect some old pictures of Papa Mike and I'll get them scanned in for some permanent storage. And perhaps this year I'll try to share more stories of him with Megan next time the "hard" question comes up.
2 comments:
Once again, you amaze me. I'd be happy to get some pictures together. I never know what to say to Megan either. She was pretty amazed that grandma viv was MY mom!
Death is a tricky and unavoidable subject to get into with little ones. You want to explain it matter-of-factly without scaring them. I was very close to my grandparents who are all gone but one and we talk about them a lot. Also we lost Jason's sister before the kids were born and we feel it is important for our kids to know about her. I think it is important for your girls to know abotu your dad - he is their grandpa whether with us any more or not. Babycenter.com has good suggestions for how to handle questions about death (and a lot of other topics). I havent' been on it in a while but I think they have a search engine and you just type in the type of question and posts will pop up. Good luck!
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