What a 5 Year Old Understands

Today was an interesting day.  We lost a loved one over the weekend.  It’s okay.  I’m doing okay, but my family isn’t doing all that great.  It’s kind of confusing to explain how she was part of my family … sort of indirectly related while still being directly related I guess.  She was sort of like an extra grandma to my family while still being a full blooded grandma to others.  My family (me, my husband and son) have experienced quite a bit of loss over the last two years.  Actually, I believe this will be our fifth family funeral in just under two years.  Anyway, I’m very tired as it’s somewhere around 2am and I really should be trying to sleep, but I can’t get something out of my head.  So, please bear with me if I don’t make a whole lot of sense.

As I was saying, we are not strangers to loss and dealing with death.  I personally believe that children should be part of the process and not left at home, so my son was with us at the funeral home today.  He had only met Grace a few times, so I don’t think he really remembered her before she got sick, but he was really interested in how she got to Heaven.  We have talked about souls and physical bodies many times, so I explained again … our bodies are like an empty glass and when we come to Earth, God puts our soul/spirit/kind of like a a ghost (to help him understand) into our bodies just like you would put water into a glass.  Over time, like water gradually leaves the glass, our souls will also leave our bodies and go back to Heaven.  My smart little five year old son looks at me and says, “Yeah, I know all that mom.”  Okay, so then I realize he’s asking me how she died … “Was she with her family and then went to sleep?”  I told him that actually she was with her family and her body was having a hard time breathing so she went to sleep and went to Heaven.  “Well, did she fall down?”  He wanted to know what actually made her body sick, so I probably not so well explained cancer like a sort of bug that was hurting her body and making her sick.  He went on to tell me all about how, “If I ever find that bug, I’m going to kick it’s butt!”  He went on and on about it and then proceeded to tell me that he wished he could go up to Heaven and see her again.  When I told him that I would cry and cry and miss him very much if he went to Heaven, his answer was “Well, I’d miss you too.  There are some things I’d be sad about and others that I’d be happy about.”  What?!!  The other day he also told my husband that he knows we will go to his funeral because we love him.  What?!!  That had better not happen for a very, very long time!!!!!  I answered his questions as best I could and talked about what he wanted to talk about, but I had to request “Please buddy, can we not talk about you going to Heaven?  It’s makes mommy very sad.”  “Okay, okay!” he says.  What????

Okay, I’m going to try to sleep now.  I guess now you know why I’m still awake.

Sweet Dreams,

Sheri