Going to the
cemetery with my kids used to be easy. They would be asleep in the car and I would park and get out, leave some flowers, tidy up and get back in the car and they would not be the wiser. My, how times have changed.
Yesterday I stopped by the
cemetery to "visit" my father and, of course, I had the kids with me. R woke up just as I pulled in and knew exactly where we were, she was the one who picked out the flowers and wanted to carry them to Grandpa. L said he wanted to stay in the car.
OK, that was finewith me.
"Don't walk on him" R said to me as I stepped by the gravestone to weed a little. "
OK, I will try not to, but you know it
doesn't hurt him right R?" I said.
She lovingly placed the flowers and
arranged them by the headstone. "Here you go Grandpa" she said.
I immediately started to cry. I never wanted to repeat what I had done with my mother so many years ago. My Mom toting her two young children to the cemetery to visit her father. I could no imagine a world without my dad, never mind my children living in it with no memory of him. R rushed back to the car, and I walk over, L was crying. "what is wrong?" I asked him. " I want to see how he is doing " L said sweetly as I pulled him out of his
car seat.
Together I walked with my two small children through the cemetery. "Hi Grandpa!" L said. "Grandpa, can you hear me?" R said laying on the grass, face down yelling into the ground. This both made me laugh and tear up again.
They are sweet, empathetic children who are naturally interested in the world and how it works, so it is no wonder I have to field questions from
strange to
how the hell do I answer that. I don't want them to fear death like I did when I was young so E and I are sure to tell them that people and animals die when they are both very old and very sick. A lie I know, but the painful truth of loss will face them soon enough. Neither our dog or my father was old when they died, but I don't want them worrying about themselves or one of us dying.
"what is Grandpa wearing?" "does he had dirt in his mouth?" "is he with god, or buried in the dirt?" "are there worms in the dirt?" "where is heaven" and "how did he get buried" are all questions I was asked yesterday.
Some I knew how to answer, others I didn't. Some made me cry and others made me laugh.
All in all I came to one conclusion: I am not going the
cemetery without E anymore.
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