The Hard Conversations

The Bear is not yet three and we have had several hard coversations about death. We barely touched on it when we spoke to him about stopping and looking for cars before he crosses the street (you can read about it at this post.) We talked about it when we found the dead bird in the back yard and we also talked about it most recently when my parents sent us a book called "Saying Goodbye to Lulu" by Corinne Demas:

                                      

It's such a sweet book. It's about a girl and her dog. They talk about old age, youth - and the differences between the two. They talk about mourning, memoriam and moving on but not forgetting. It's really sweet without being morbid or scary but the Bear did ask a lot of questions. Like, "Where's Lulu? I can't see her." (They don't show her when she is dead nor do they show the act of burying her but they do show a little dirt plot of where she was buried.) Our conversation was similar to our dead bird conversation. What was interesting is that he wanted to read the book again. We read it twice each night for several nights in a row. 

Here he is looking at pictures of food in the National Geographic.

One day we had several National Geographics lying out and he started leafing through them. He stopped on a page with a grid of different foods. He asked what each one was. I thought to myself, what a great magazine for a child! He can learn about different cultures and places and foods! Then he flipped to a page that was full of strife. I don't quite remember what the subject was but I think it had to do with the turmoil in Thailand. He asked me all sorts of questions like, "What's he doing, Mama?" and "What's going on?" All you can do is figure out a way to tell them without scarring them - which is hard to do. I wish I could remember the conversation better. I took these pictures of him really looking and thinking about what he was seeing:

When we went to Seattle last weekend we went to the Locks which let boats into Puget Sound from the lake. It's quite interesting. On the other side of the Locks are fish ladders which help the Salmon (and other fish) travel into the Sound. As we were walking across the bridge We saw a dead fish lying on a grate below. Bear saw it and said, "Mama, look at that fish." I told him that it was dead. He looked at it intently and slowly but surely a big frown came across his face. He was clearly saddened by this. I explained to him what probably happened and that it was sad but that the fish was not hurting anymore. He wanted to look a little longer. We stayed until he was ready to move on. I hate to see him sad like that but it is amazing to witness such empathy and sorrow.

One day while we were at the library I was drawn to this book because it was bright red and the illustration looked interesting. The book was called "The Scar" by Charlotte Moundlic. I thought it was about getting an owie on your leg and it leaving a scar. Nope. It is about a parent dying and it is one of the sweetest, loveliest, tearjerkers I have ever read. If you ever know any child who has lost a parent this is a great book. I didn't check it out for the Bear as I thought that the subject of either me or Mike dying would be a little much but I stood there in the kids section in the library and read the whole thing with tears streaming down my face. A Hot Mess, as my NC friends would've called me.

Here are some of my favorite passages, 

At first Grandma hardly moves, but then she starts looking around our house like she's searching for something or someone. She can't sit still and the last straw is when she opens the windows wide. "It's too hot in this house. We're all going to suffocate," she says. And that's too much for me. I shout and cry and scream, "No! Don't open the windows! Mom's going to disappear for good...."And I fall and the tears flow without stopping, and there's nothing I can do and I feel very tired.

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I'm scared that Grandma will think I'm crazy. But no, she comes close to me and puts her hand, then my hand, on my heart. "She's there," she says, "in your heart, and she's not going anywhere."

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I'm so afraid of forgetting Mom completely that once I know that she's in my heart, whenever I can, I run. I run until my muscles hurt, until it hurts to breathe. And then I feel Mom beating very hard in my chest.

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Grandma went home a few days ago, and when I woke up this morning, I smelled coffee and heard a voice on the radio saying that it was going to be a nice day. "It's me!" I shout from the top of the stairs, which is dumb, since Dad knows that we're the only two here but it makes him smile. He opens his arms to me, I throw myself in them, and my heart beats so hard I can almost hear Mom whispering, "Go on, my little man. Go on..."

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GAAAAHHH. Now I've got tears down my face again. It's really a great book.

To end on a lighter note I got him the book "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury. It is fun because a) They are going on a bear hunt. b) there are lots of sound effect sounds like, "Swishy Swashy!" and "Squelch Squerch!" And c) It is very repetitive. The first read-through the Bear was able to almost read along with me and definitely finish my sentences. When he went to bed the first night I read that to him I could hear him talking in the crib quoting lines, "We can't go under it, We have to go through it!" and "It's a beautiful day! We're not scared!" "Swishy swashy swishy swashy!" So cute. 

So, anyways, the hard conversations are few and far between - but important, me thinks.