Death

The first time I had to deal with death was when I was either in kindergarten or first grade when the family dog had to get put down.  During the day, he had been hit by a car and injured so badly that that was the most humane option.  He was my parents first child.  My dad met me on the front lawn after school and told me Soapy was gone.  That was my first heartbreak.

When I was in elementary school, my maternal grandmother passed away.  It was a very hard time for my mom and I feel like the grieving I did was more for her, or that's how I remember it now.  Great grandparents, other grandparents, and a great aunt died before I was in high school.  My maternal grandfather passed away in 2009.  He lived with us after Katrina and my mom was his main caretaker for years until he passed.  That was a tough one to go through, also.  The next big heartbreaks I had were when the family dogs, Rusty and Dash, were put down within a few years of each other because of age and health issues.

Just last week, my husband's grandfather passed away.  He was 96 years old.  Tomorrow is actually his 97 birthday.  By the time I met my husband, Paw-paw was already fairly deep into dementia.  He never knew my name and I'm not really sure that he ever understood that I was his grandson's wife.  I never knew him like all of his family did, and that's okay.  In a way, that made it much easier for me to comfort my husband when his heart broke.  Although I cried several times, it was because I know what he's going through, and it reminds of me going through the similar situation with my grandfather.

Our daughter is around the same age I was when I dealt with losing Soapy.  She doesn't quite understand what death means and she has a lot of questions.  Explaining it is one of those abstract concepts that we have to be really careful about what we say so we don't cause more confusion.  There was a helpful article on a parenting site that warned about leaning too far into the heaven explanation because you don't want to make your child think that they will only be happy when they die and go to heaven.  That's what we were kind of brought up thinking, though, so that leaves us really lost at what to say about it.

Have you had to explain a death in the family - pet or human - to the five and under crowd?  Do you have any advice or tips?  Our girl sort of gets it, but still doesn't really get it.  My main concern right now is that her not getting it gets her dad upset because it makes him continuously think about the loss.