Breaking the News

    Sorry about the late post again folks, this was a very tough week for our family. Ducky's grandfather Pap Pap died. It was not after a long drawn out illness such as cancer, but not quite fast and shocking like from an accident or act of violence. Both have they're own pitfalls. With the lingering death you at least know its coming and get to say good bye. There's no easy way to deal with the loss of a loved one. We personally try to remember all the great moments we've had with the person and celebrate their lives. The loss however brought up several questions you always have to ask yourself.

    The main question is how to broach the subject, which largely depends on the age and maturity level of the child. Ducky is clearly too young to understand death, everything is very now for her. I'm sad because she will never remember her pap pap and she will only how much he loved her from what we tell her. On the other hand, although it sounds cold, I don't have to worry about her grief as well as our own. I do however have to worry about our grief in how it affects her. Our daughter is extraordinarily empathetic, if someone is crying (such as the neighbor when I was re-piercing his ears) she will be as well. When one of us has a random moment when it strikes us that we will never receive a random call that he's around the corner and get out on the porch and let him know we can't show it.

     This also brings up the second major question I had to ask myself, when is it appropriate to take your child to a funeral. I went to my first funeral when I was 6 and I understood I had to be quiet and we were all there to say goodbye to our loved one but I was not ready for the open casket viewing. I thought it was a doll someone had made that looked like her. That wouldn't have been an issue in this case, but I don't think my rambunctious toddler would be able to sit and be quiet through and actual funeral service.

      The third question then becomes what do we do with our children during the viewings, service and burial? So far we have yet to have a "stranger" baby sitter. All of our child care has been a family member or close friend. In the past I stayed home with Ducky but that would not be an option because this time I'm close to the person as well as my husband. We had several offers to watch her if we needed but I still felt awkward because I felt like I would be saying "ok you're not close enough to attend the funeral but close enough I trust you with our child! Congrats on being a second ring friend!". We all know the rings or levels of friendship exist but it's always awkward to acknowledge them. You have the really close friends who might as well be family at this point, the ones that are great friends but don't know everyone in your family, and those friends who know nothing about your family other than they maybe exist.

       The final questions I had to ask myself this week was the dreaded "what if's?". What if one of use dies, what do we want done? Funeral or Cremation? Buried close to our family or where we live now? Ashes kept in an urn or scattered? Who gets Kiernan if something happens to both of us? Who is going to be in charge of handling arrangements if a different one of our loved ones dies?

       In the end however all we're left with are our memories of a man who loved his family. We will be able to tell Ducky about how her Pap Pap used to call us to tell us about every movie he watched. How the man should have floated away with the amount of coffee he drank. We have a few of his belongings we are keeping but she will never understand the hilarity of a man who always got confused with his cell phone but constantly had a blue tooth device on his ear is why we kept it. Hopefully through the family stories she will one day get to know him since she's not going to get to grow up with him here for her.