"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'."
— Groucho Marx
Death
My son asked my wife and I today if we are going to die. Kind of a heavy conversation for a little boy.
My daughter has been asking about it a lot, too. I'm not quite sure she understands what it means, because she seems to think that it isn't final. I think she confuses it with being sick.
And the sad thing is that each time the Pres. is on TV she asks, "Did someone die?" because she remembers me watching Reagan's funeral and telling her that a Pres. died. So she associates presidents w/death now.
It is not an easy question, but it can successfully be handled. One of my grandmothers died last year. Following her death we found a book that was designed to help children understand and cope with death.
So when my son brought this up read the book together and talked about what it means. And that seemed to work for him.
But it wasn't easy listening to him ask us not to die. I was torn about whether to completely lie and say it won't happen or whether I should be really honest.
Since he is so little I hedged a little and reminded him that Abba's parents are still around and that he has 4 great-grandparents so he shouldn't worry about this. It worked yesterday, we'll see if it comes back up again.
4 comments:
My daughter has been asking about it a lot, too. I'm not quite sure she understands what it means, because she seems to think that it isn't final. I think she confuses it with being sick.
And the sad thing is that each time the Pres. is on TV she asks, "Did someone die?" because she remembers me watching Reagan's funeral and telling her that a Pres. died. So she associates presidents w/death now.
Wow. Makes me realize how unready I am to answer that question. What did you say?
It is not an easy question, but it can successfully be handled. One of my grandmothers died last year. Following her death we found a book that was designed to help children understand and cope with death.
So when my son brought this up read the book together and talked about what it means. And that seemed to work for him.
But it wasn't easy listening to him ask us not to die. I was torn about whether to completely lie and say it won't happen or whether I should be really honest.
Since he is so little I hedged a little and reminded him that Abba's parents are still around and that he has 4 great-grandparents so he shouldn't worry about this. It worked yesterday, we'll see if it comes back up again.
Wild that he is asking at such a young age. I wonder what prompted it? Could be school, could be TV. His goldfish died a couple of weeks ago.
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