My first thought is just simply – no. Please God, do not let this be happening again. Whatever you do, God, you have to make my father-in-law well. You have to make him live. I cannot tell my children for the second time in six months that they have lost a grandparent.

They process it so differently, this thing called grief. For Abby, my mother’s passing must still feel fresh to her. She is so forthright and honest when she talks about it, and death is a subject she talks about a lot now. Abby will tell anyone, from good friends to perfect strangers, that “Da Da died” in a matter-of-fact tone as if she were recounting that yesterday she got her hair cut. And then as an addendum, Abby will add other deaths she knows about, like our cat. Because three weeks after my mother passed away, so too did our beloved cat, Biggio. And sometimes she will include anyone else she has learned has died, like Andrew Jackson or inexplicably, although not totally since children absorb so much more than we give them credit for, newsman Joe Scarborough‘s dad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gey1PtXYwLI

I watch “Morning Joe” every day, and when Abby is not in school, we watch it together. Joe’s father died in early May, and it was talked about a lot on the show, and clearly Joe’s loss made an impression on my daughter. Now Abby will frequently tell me (totally came up with this on her own, by the way), “When I am an angel, I will go to heaven and make Da Da, my kitty and Joe’s dad all better and they can come back again.”

But sometimes, out of the blue, she will ask to talk to my mom, to call her on the phone, and I will remind her that she is now in heaven, so we can’t call her anymore. She will always say to me, “But I just want to ask her a question.” She is so matter-of-fact about it, but it rips my heart out all the same to know that she still doesn’t wholly grasp the permanence of this thing called loss.

Then there is Emma, who really doesn’t talk about her grief, but who feels it deeply and comprehends it fully. I see it in ways that I would never expect. There were several times this summer where I would go to check her before bed, and I would find that she had gotten up and gotten the pink Magic 8 ball that my mother got her for her 7th birthday last year and put it next to her bed. One day, I also discovered that Emma keeps a tag in my mother’s handwriting in her nightstand drawer. And every now and then, but only at bedtime and only when we are lying there in the dark in her bed talking, she will ask me if I miss my mom.

We share memories of her. It was interesting when I told her that we needed to get Kleenex for her classroom, because she got really quiet and said, “Da Da used to always buy me Kleenex for my bedroom. I don’t have any that she bought me anymore.” Or a few weeks ago she brought up and described in perfect detail how my mom used to record the show with all the dresses (Project Runway) and they would watch it together and each give their opinions on what they saw. I was amazed that she remembered that because it had been at least 3 years since that could have happened.

Once and only once has she asked for the details of what happened to make her die, and I shared them with her and asked her if she had any questions. She asked a few and then she told me very clearly, “I don’t want to talk about this again.” And she meant it. She gets easily embarrassed and almost angry when her sister so casually mentions it. Seven is such a hard age to lose a grandparent. Emma is old enough to understand what death means, but still young enough to have been robbed of a long relationship with her grandmother.

So, as I sit on this airplane flying to the bedside of my amazing father-in-law, my girls are both at the front of my mind. I feel like if something happens to him, we have just reset my children’s loss clocks. And it just seems like too much for two people who are so very little to lose two people they love in such a short amount of time.

Addendum: This article was written on an airplane with an incredible amount of uncertainty about what would be waiting for me after I landed. Never before has the instruction to turn off all cell phones been met with such a heavy feeling in my stomach, because I had no idea what would be waiting for me when I turned it back on again upon landing. I am thrilled to say that God listened to the prayers of many, and my father-in-law has made a full and complete recovery. Our entire family is so very grateful for this outcome; there are not enough words to express it. There is a little part of me who wants to believe that a grandmother in heaven who watches over the two girls she loved with all her heart had a hand in it, too. After all, isn’t that what guardian angels are supposed to do?

 

Cross-posted from Modern Parent Online