Talking to a 3 year old about death- XP
Jul 6, 2015 16:30:28 GMT -5
Post by mommyatty on Jul 6, 2015 16:30:28 GMT -5
Cross-posted from Working Moms
My FIL moves today from an almost month-long hospital stay to a rehab facility. Two weeks after he moves to the rehab, his oncologist is going to check him out and determine if it's time to call hospice. Really, the rehab facility is a last-ditch effort to get him to want to live.
Oncologist isn't hopeful. In his words, he just doesn't see the kind of will to fight and will to survive that FIL is going to need to recover. And we still don't really know what is wrong with FIL. Just a series of infections and crazy muscle weakness along with dementia that comes and goes. He can't swallow, has a feeding tube, is off and on incontinent, sometimes appears borderline comatose. It's bad.
DD turns 3 this Saturday. She is very, very smart and very, very verbal. She has also spent most of her life with her grandparents as her daycare. I have no idea what to tell her about her grandfather. She knows he's really sick. She knows we cancelled vacation because he's sick. She knows Grandma is sad. But I don't know how to explain death to a 3 year old.
We aren't religious, especially my MIL and FIL. So I can't really go with "Grandpa is in heaven with the Angels." My MIL would not be at all comforted by that and I'm not sure how she would react. Besides which I don't know what I believe about the afterlife, so I'm uncomfortable giving the version I was given (which never rang true to me and thus was not helpful anyway).
Any ideas? I'm at a loss.
My FIL moves today from an almost month-long hospital stay to a rehab facility. Two weeks after he moves to the rehab, his oncologist is going to check him out and determine if it's time to call hospice. Really, the rehab facility is a last-ditch effort to get him to want to live.
Oncologist isn't hopeful. In his words, he just doesn't see the kind of will to fight and will to survive that FIL is going to need to recover. And we still don't really know what is wrong with FIL. Just a series of infections and crazy muscle weakness along with dementia that comes and goes. He can't swallow, has a feeding tube, is off and on incontinent, sometimes appears borderline comatose. It's bad.
DD turns 3 this Saturday. She is very, very smart and very, very verbal. She has also spent most of her life with her grandparents as her daycare. I have no idea what to tell her about her grandfather. She knows he's really sick. She knows we cancelled vacation because he's sick. She knows Grandma is sad. But I don't know how to explain death to a 3 year old.
We aren't religious, especially my MIL and FIL. So I can't really go with "Grandpa is in heaven with the Angels." My MIL would not be at all comforted by that and I'm not sure how she would react. Besides which I don't know what I believe about the afterlife, so I'm uncomfortable giving the version I was given (which never rang true to me and thus was not helpful anyway).
Any ideas? I'm at a loss.