There are many things are parents you can’t prepare for until they happen. There is no manual telling us what to do when they are sick, or get hurt, or have their first broken heart.
For the most part, having been an experienced social worker, handling the “talks” has been relatively easy. Explaining where babies come from, how our bodies change, stranger danger, sex, etc. are normal conversations that I have had to have for work over the past 14 years. I felt mostly prepared for what parenting threw at me, until I wasn’t.
Death. I wasn’t prepared to discuss death/dying/afterlife with my kids.
I have experience with this topic. I spent many summers working with Hospice of Dayton as a volunteer at a bereavement camp. I personally have experienced significant loss in my life.
Yet I was NOT prepared when I had to tell my 10-year-old that someone she knows, was going to die. Or the questions that came after. She wanted to know how death works. What happens after. If God, Heaven, etc. were real how you got there.
She asked me questions I honestly don’t even know how to answer for myself some days. I may be the parent, the adult, but with each question all I could think is, “I’m not even grown-up enough to know these answers, who am I to be answering this for her.”
I swallowed hard and attempted to answer the questions she had asked. I utilized grief sites, my own beliefs, and science to do the best I could to answer honestly, without showing her my own fears I have about passing on to the next life.
Parenting is so very hard. The thought of losing someone we love, or care about, or is family is NEVER easy. Yet it seems this topic is often ignored until it can’t be any longer.
At this point, all I can say is that I hope I’ve answered her well, that she feels content in what was said and that when it comes time for her to answer the same questions, she knows her mom is here to help her if need be. Until that time, I will grab the closest bottle of wine I can find, and prepare myself that there are going to be more moments like this one. The moments we think we will be prepared for, but aren’t.
