I love so much of what it means to be a mom. But there are certainly things that I would rather not deal with at all. Sleepless nights, runny noses, talking back... and difficult conversations. I don't know any parent who looks forward to discussing things like the birds and the bees or death and dying. So when one of the teachers at Cole's preschool suddenly and sadly passed away last month, I braced myself for questions. But they never came. I knew that the school was going to explain things to the kids, and I was grateful that whatever Cole was told was enough that he never brought it up to me. Until the other night.
We were eating dinner and discussing how people are related which is a current area of interest to my 4 year old. We established that Chase is my son and not my brother or my husband and that Chloe is my daughter because she is a little girl. Then the conversation went like this:
C- Grandmom is your mommy?
M- Yes. Just like you and Chloe and Chase all grew inside Mommy's belly, I grew inside of Gram's.
C- (Laughs.) That's so crazy! And who is Grandmom's mommy?
M- She was my grandmom who you never met. She lives in heaven.
C- She died?
(This is where I was thrown. I didn't even know he really knew that word.)
M- Yes, she did. How do you know that?
C- That's what happened to Miss Carol. (Break my heart.)
M- They told you that at school?
C- Yes. Is heaven far away?
M- Yes, it is.
C- Do you have to drive there?
M- (Hmm, how to explain this.) It's really far. You have to fly.
C- You're just kidding, right?
M- No, you do. You have to fly because it's so far.
C- Oh. Okay.
Satisfied for the time being, Cole went back to eating and Mommy picked her heart up off the floor and breathed a big, although probably temporary, sigh of relief.
