Journeying through Grief at Five

The past nine months have offered a unique set of struggles and challenges in parenting that I did not anticipate for at least another decade.  Mothering a young child going through a grief process has stretched and pulled me in directions I did not know possible and at times simultaneously made my heart soar and sore.

When we prepared to tell Ben about the passing of his grandfather, I cried – a lot.  I cried for the loss of their relationship, I cried for the sadness he would feel but most of all I cried for the reality we were about to expose him to.  The reality of uncertainty and the fragility of life – that life is by no means fair and that it can hurt - a lot.   He was four and a half and I didn’t want to rip that band-aid off so soon and so harshly.  

As we prepared to tell Ben and seek out the right words, the right place for a situation that felt so wrong I was met with many voices I know were filled with good intentions but felt so belittling– ‘He is so young, he won’t remember anything’ ‘He is so little, he won’t understand’ or my favorite, ‘oh he’ll be fine, kids are so resilient’ and in my head I was silently wanting to scream – you don’t know my son.  This will not be a passing moment that he will forget.  He will hold onto this.  He will understand this.  This will rock his core.

 It will be many months later at a playdate when I am feeling particularly unraveled that I mention this to another mother, who happens to be a psychologist, and I tell her the anger I felt when people said these things to me.  I felt like Ben’s grief, his journey, was being belittled and pushed aside because he was young as if it was nothing and I knew it would be something, something that would shape his young mind and his perspective.  And this lovely mother turned to me a said the simplest most validating statement ‘of course it will affect him, he went through a trauma.’

Never underestimate the power of validating a person.

That one sentence brought me such peace.

Thank God for fellow mothers – especially the ones with a psychology backgrounds!

Ben is a smart boy who asks insightful questions.  These questions start immediately following his grandfather’s death.  How did he die?  Why did he die?   I try my best to keep it simple and honest.

His heart was special and we didn’t know – and it broke.

Later, in the fall, Ben will become interested in how things work and how to fix them.  What makes the body work?  More specifically how the heart works.  After spending an evening skimming one of my graduate texts on anatomy, looking at the pictures and humming to himself he will slide the book across the counter to me opened to a page with an illustration of the human heart.  There he splays his hand across the heart as if he is holding it – right there, that’s a picture of a heart, one that works.  Let’s take this down to the hospital so the doctors can see how its supposed to work.  Then we can go get granddaddy from the cemetery and bring him to the hospital, they just didn’t understand hearts Mom – but I’ve got the picture right here.  We can fix his heart and he’ll wake back up.

I have to fight back tears of pride and sadness to explain how that is not how things work but what a fantastic idea.  Ben, you are such a smart boy.

As time passes Ben becomes more and more concerned with death.  He asks me quietly one night while I am tucking him into bed, ‘Mom.....am I going to die someday?’

I pause.  Soaking in the question.  Slowing repeating in my own head – keep it simple.  Keep it honest.   I take a deep breathe and he begins to sob.

The band-aid is ripping.

I curl into bed with him and wrap myself around his little body.

‘Not for a long long time Ben, not until you are really really old’

He sits up and composes himself and tells me with a straight face ‘Mom, you don’t know when people are going to die – no one does’

His band-aid is being ripped off and my heart is shredding in the process.

As the year progresses Ben waxes and wanes – some weeks are harder than others.  As Christmas approaches he cries himself to sleep several nights and I hold him until his little body gives into his exhaustion and then I lay there silently crying over him.  There is so much hurt.   I call a bunch of child psychologists.  I look up their credentials – no one can see us until after New Years.  I wait.

He gets better.  I cancel the appointments chalking it up to me overreacting. 

As spring approaches Ben hits another rough patch….Easter.  He obsesses over Jesus dying and rising from the dead.  He prays every night for Grandaddy to come back too.  I find drawings of Jesus on the cross complete with nails and blood in his coloring books.  I get a call from school that he has been acting out in class – not himself.  And one morning he melts down in the car crying that if he is nice like Grandaddy, God will take him to be with him in heaven too.  I finally make the call one rainy afternoon to our pediatrician – I leave a simple message, ‘I am out of my league, I need guidance – is there anyone you recommend we could talk to?’

Within the hour I have a call back with a name and an appointment date.  Her name is Mary.  She will take good care of you.  

I print off the forms for the appointment and fill them out with tears slowly blurring my eyes.  I just want him to be five and happy and silly.  I want him to get to be five.

I think about cancelling as the weeks go by and he seems more on track and then one afternoon I am taking a bath and Ben slips into the bathroom and climbs up on the counter.  He is hunched over holding his legs.  Quiet.  Just staring ahead at the wall.

‘What’s up buddy?’

‘I’m worried’

‘I can tell, what is on your mind?’

‘Well, I’ve been wondering, can kids die?  Like when they are still kids?  Can little kids die?’

My heart sinks and I want to just recede under my bath water.  Deep breathes – I consider his question for a moment – Be honest.  Keep it simple.  – But something else bucks up inside of me and screams HE IS FIVE and I decide to lie.

‘Nope, kids can’t die’ and I smile through my lie.

He is quiet for a moment staring out the window above me and then responds ‘I don’t think that’s true’.

I dig my heels in deeper and hold onto my lie, the last piece of this innocence I am keeping it. ‘Kids can’t die.’ I repeat firmly.

‘Well’ he begins ‘well remember when we went to Grandaddy’s grave?’ He is referencing a visit from over 6 months ago.

‘Yep’

‘Well, remember you got mad at me for playing with that firetruck?’

And I remember, it was the first time we brought the boys to the grave.  Brannon and I were there with his grandmother and the boys were running around the graveyard – Austin finding ‘super letters’ on tumbstones and announcing ‘I found a B’ and Ben was wandering the cemetery when he found a little toy firetruck sitting on a small grave and picked it up to play with it – and now I remember what I said before Ben repeats it to me all these months later in our bathroom.

‘You said to put it down Mom – that it was that little boy’s firetruck.  And I’ve been thinking if it was that little boy’s firetruck then he is dead and he is a kid, so kids can die’

Checkmate.

My eyes well up.  He is five and I don’t want him to know this but he already does.  And I tell him he is right.  Kids can die.  But most of the time they don’t. 

When I get out of the tub, I call the pediatric psychologist’s office to confirm our appointment.  Not because Ben is not resilient but because he is in-fact very resilient and insightful.  Not because I am not a good mother but because I am smart enough to know my limits and when I could use some help.   This is hard and we could all use some guidance right about now. 

Ben goes tomorrow.

I am looking forward to what the psychologist has to say and what comes of this.

I am looking forward to having a resource and a reference point in all of this.

I am looking forward to tomorrow.