And Who Is.......

The kids have been into "defining" who everyone is in their life. Constantly asking and confirming who someone is. Who is your sister mommy? Aunt Cori. Who is your sister daddy? Aunt Susan. Who is your brother? Grandma is your mommy, Daddy and Paw Paw is your Daddy , Daddy. It took a while but a few weeks ago I finally got who is your mommy, Mommy? "Well, that's Grammy. She lives far away and we don't get to see her. Do you remember her?" Both say no. Not too surprising since it has been a year since she has seen them, and then it was January before that. "Do you want to see a picture of her to see if that helps?" So I show them pictures and then they are distracted by looking at other pictures and we are off on another subject. My Mother and I currently are not in communication. If you read slackermommy my childhood and hers were very similar and over the course of adulthood, things did get better and the relationship was on the road to repair but unfortunately turned toxic once again. It is one thing for me to have to deal with the pain and extras that come with having her in my life, but quite another to put my children through it, hence where we are at now. 'Nuff said on that subject, this is not a safe arena to discuss such matters. Olivia asks a few more times through the days as they go through the whole list of family and in my head I wonder why they don't think to ask about who my Dad is.....Well it happened today. On the way home from Target. How random is that? Dave and I just look at each other and my heart starts beating a cajillion times a minute. "My daddy isn't alive anymore." Why not? chirps Olivia from the backseat. How do explain to a 3 year old and a 5 year that their other Paw Paw committed suicide? "Well, he was very, very, very, sad and just didn't want to be alive anymore." Then Jake pipes up, "Was he in Jail?" While it was funny at the time, and made Dave and I laugh the more I think about it, yes, he kind of was in jail.

It's hard trying to explain death of any kind to a child, much less suicide. I'm sure I will have to answer their questions many times over the course of their lives and the answers will develop and become more involved as they mature and can handle the reality of it. I never want to hide the fact of what he did, nor make it a dark dirty scary family secret. We have not had a pet (Dave cleaned up the fish before the kids noticed anything) or anyone pass away since the kids have been born so they have no hands on experience with it. And now they are becoming more aware that they have a grandparent out there that isn't a part of their lives......geeesh. This parenting gig just keeps getting tougher and tougher.