Was that when I was living with God?
It is very sweet.
Then there is the second part of going to live with God - after you die.
My cousin passed away this summer. He left a loving wife and a pre-teen son. Jackson came to the wake and funeral. We explained that while Will's daddy's body was still there, he had gone to live with God.
Jax is obsessed with dying right now. The timing is not good, not that it ever is. Between my mom's illness, which she is fully expected to fully recover, and Jackson's other grandfather, who is undergoing chemo for inoperable cancer, there has been and is the risk of death touching his little life.
But I don't think we have been talking about dying. OR mentioned that either my mom or John's dad might die.
He has been grilling me about me dying, how I would feel if he died, what happens when you "get dead", why people are sad when someone goes to live with God, why people are afraid to die.
I have been doing my best to answer his questions, without misleading him, but without scaring him.
I have explained that people get sad when someone dies because they will miss them, even if they ARE living with God. And people get scared to die because even if it is a beautiful, very special place to go live with God, people don't remember being there before, and they have to go by themselves.
In the mean time, Jackson knows that GrandmaB had an ouchie in her tummy that the doctors had to fix, like they fixed his potties, and that Pappa has an ouchie in his tummy and the doctors are giving him medicine to help make it better.
However, if the chemo doesn't work, I am concerned about the next steps. My friend told me a counselor told her that it was very normal for only children to be obsessed with their parents' deaths, and especially common for only children of single parents.
But if you have any suggestions in things to say, books for me to read to help me talk with him, books for us to read together, please send them my way! I am hoping it will be a long time before we need to go there again, but with a 92 year old grandma great, and an 80 Pappa something with metastasized cancer, I am guess this will not be the case....
3 comments:
I don't have any advice or suggestions for you....I just wanted to send thoughts your way and applaud you for NOT shying away from what must be a really difficult conversation. Jackson will be the better off for it in the long run I am sure. My prayers will be with Pappa and your mom though so you don't have to have this conversation with him again anytime soon!
I don't have any advice or suggestions for you....I just wanted to send thoughts your way and applaud you for NOT shying away from what must be a really difficult conversation. Jackson will be the better off for it in the long run I am sure. My prayers will be with Pappa and your mom though so you don't have to have this conversation with him again anytime soon!
I don't have any advice for you either, although it sounds like you don't need any. You're doing just fine on your own. My kids have gone through similar obsessions especially when our friend Chris died and left behind 4 kids my kids ages. The only other thing I do is just pray that during those moments the Holy Spirit will guide me to say and do the right thing. So far, so good.
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