Enough

I have had to explain death to my child too many times in his 6 years...especially recently. Death does not really make sense to any of us, and it is alway sad. But for us recently, it has been a young cousin taken too soon, and just this past week the father of a child in his class. Why? We've had enough.

We raise our child very openly with very open and broad beliefs. I will not and cannot explain something that I do not know as a fact, so death is particularly hard to deal with. Even if you tell a child someone has gone to heaven, that is so abstract. And I have the child who wants to know exactly where, how you get there, what the accommodations are like...OY!

This is not about comfort on my part. I am open and willing to explain whatever he wants to know....but I don't have the answers to this one...nobody does. I do not want him to fear dying or death of those around him, but at the same time it is a harsh reality that has been pounded repeatedly into our thoughts.

As a former educator, I experienced several parents' passings, and the aftermath wreaked upon the community. The sadness, the terror....even worse, I have experienced the loss of children...a child attending another child's funeral is just about more than I can handle...I  hope I will prepare and comfort him enough for his class's circle discussion tomorrow morning about the loss of a child's parent...but I also realize that he will form his own theories, thoughts and beliefs. This is one of those moments where I have to let him go a little bit more....each time we let go a little, they grow a little...I just wish he didn't have to grow in this way so quickly...