Thursday, January 6, 2011

How Do I Explain Finality

The beginning of a year of possibilities hardly seems the place to talk about an ending.  Husbeastie's grandmother, our little Nannie, passed away on January 4th.

The end had been coming for a while.  We're saddened, but at the same time a bit relieved that she'll be free of pain and with her beloved Haw again.

While the Husbeastie is sad and withdrawn about it , not really wanting to talk about it (after all, his Nannie practically raised him)- Chaos is angry.  Chaos has faced death in our family before and isn't having a difficult time with the concept.  What he's angry about is that this time it's VERY personal.

When Chaos was a baby, we moved from Texas to Florida to live with MoMo (Hubby's Mom). After a while, Nannie came to live with all of us.  Every morning, Chaos and Nannie had "coffee" together at the dining room table.  (Ok, in reality, he had warm Ovaltine and she had coffee.)  He always helped her with things like finding her cane and carrying her purse.  Even later, after she moved into assisted living, he'd go and play Bingo with her and visit often.  Now, while he LOVES his MoMo, his Nannie has a special place in his heart.

So this is very personal.

(Doc, of course, hasn't spent much time with Nannie.  He just knows we're a little sad.)

I wondered how I should explain this to Chaos when he surprised me.
"Mommy, Nannie is dead."
"Yes, sweetie..."
"She was at the end of her days.  The sun went down and won't come up for her tomorrow, then, right?"
"That's right, dear..."
"We still have our memories, though."

My big man.  It seems strange that he explained the finality of it to me. 

We'll miss you Nannie. 

2 comments:

  1. Precious! I never give my boys the credit they deserve. Children are so much smarter than we think.
    It's me, Tasha, from the CAST group. I look forward to following your blog.
    And I grabbed the ISOP button while I was here.
    Thanks for making it!!!!

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  2. Chaos is a very smart little boy. : ) It's difficult to deal with a gifted child who has ADHD because I tend to really underestimate him. He continually surprises me.

    Thanks for grabbing the button! At some point, I'm going to get Doc's full story on the site- I've only touched on it once before. I sincerely would love to see ISOP awareness spread like maple syrup across the pancakes of the world.

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