In the car on the way home from a family birthday party Claudia...out of no where...said "Curtis died."
Yes, yes he did.
"I can't play with him because he died."
Yes, honey.
"But he is still my brother."
Cue the tears. I choked them back and said "You are right."
She then said, switching off of Curtis but still on death, "Remember how Annie's parents died?" (Annie, from the musical. I let her watch it..it is a fave of mine, but is pretty intense. I didn't think she would follow the story like she did.)
That day we watched Annie I was trying to explain in 4 year old terms that Annie's parents died and she wanted a new mommy and daddy to love her. Of course I get the "Who is going to be my mommy and daddy when you die?" response. Craig was about to jump in and say "That won't happen." But I cut him off, one thing...life is unpredictable. I tried to tell her if something happened to mommy, daddy would take care of her and vice versa. She looked at me like I was crazy and said "No, I want a new daddy like Annie!" Craig and I laughed, assuming she was expecting Daddy Warbucks to swoop in with his millions.
I doubt reality of what death is makes any sense to Claudia. It makes so little sense to me.
3 comments:
Oh, wow. Hopefully we'll have these conversations someday, but I guess we have a lot of thinking to do first. We can barely explain Elizabeth's death to ourselves...
That's so sweet that Claudia thought of Curtis out of the blue.
I've really found the discussions about our daughter's death and stillbirth with our son (3.33 then and 4.5 now) to be the most insightful and frankly good for me of anyone in my life.
Powerful (and cute) post. Thanks for sharing.
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