My son checks in with me every few days as the house is packed up and plans for Melbourne are made.
“Daddy can’t come back, can he?”
And the answer is always the same. “No baby, I’m sorry, he can’t”. I remind him that no matter where we are, or how long we wait, people just can’t come back from heaven.
I swallow how much I hate the taste of those words. Not their meaning so much as the look they leave behind. Resigned disappointment on the face of a little boy who knows too much about disappointment already.
***
Driving home one night, we see Venus; a bright pinprick of light protruding low on the horizon. It’s not a star, I explain. But it looks like one. So it’s good for wishing on, anyway.
The Bumpy Thing wishes to be a ballerina. That’s simple enough.
The Chop wishes for his daddy back.
And again, my heart breaks. I attempt to temper my response with understanding the emotion and still give it the reality of the truth.
It’s not fair. Children should have stars for wishing on. More than that, they should be allowed some hope that their wishes could come true.
***
While my son still pines for his father, my daughter’s grief is currently focused on something more childlike. It’s still heartbreaking, but in it’s normality, slightly less so.
The Bumpy Girl… she misses her cat.
It’s been weeks since Dim Sum died. Not a day has gone by without my baby girl telling me she misses him, that she wishes he were still here. She sleeps with a photo of him by her bed. She mourns him with all the ferocity of three year old emotions.
Part of me wonders if this is grief refracted and mirrored. Replacement grief, for something she never really got to feel. A way of dealing with the other things that hurt, using something symbolic and tangible to express the pain she doesn’t know how to otherwise.
But maybe that’s reading too far into it. Maybe it really is just as simple as missing the pet she loved so much.
Either way, there’s little else to do but to treat the symptoms of whatever’s hurting as they appear. I cuddle her and chat with her. I do my best to validate whatever she’s feeling.
And I count down the time until I can get her a kitten.
It’s a shallow, band-aid solution. But this kind of pain may be fixable, where other hurts are clearly not.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh, poor Chop, that is heartbreaking. XXXX
Getting another cat will be good once you’re all settled, a new start, a new family member!
My son is 3 too, and honestly he would obsess and mourn if he lost he bunch of angry birds and pigs. He loves them as much as any pet. Sooo… I guess I’m saying… it’s OK.
Funny you should mention the impending purchase of a new kitten, I have been asked numerous times why it is, that if we cant have our old daddy back, we cant just nick down to the local daddy shop and buy a new one??! ……bunnings has most things, but i’m yet to find the new daddy section
Funny you should mention the impending purchase of a new kitten, I have been asked numerous times why it is, that if we cant have our old daddy back, we cant just nick down to the local daddy shop and buy a new one??! ……bunnings has most things, but i’m yet to find the new daddy section
I remember wishing on stars, wishing my Dad could be back. I think that was when I realised fairy tale endings were so much BS and stopped believing. In everything.
We got my daughter a cat as an early birthday present, from the RSPCA shelter. It turned out the cat had a congenital illness and died about 8 months later. It was heartbreaking. That was over a year ago, and she still tells me she’s sad some days about Rosie. She’s nearly 8 now. I dont’ know if she’s still affected by losing the cat or if it is the only language she knows how to express being upset. She feels a sadness and she connects it to the cat because that’s what made her feel that way the first time.
I don’t know. It’s all too hard. I would have gotten her a replacement kitten but bub was due the month after the cat died so I figured a new little brother would do at the time.
I think one of the hardest things about raising children is that the older they get, the less they rely on you. But we still want to warp them up in the warm, enveloping innocence they enjoyed as a newborn. Your little ones have faced more than any child should ever have to. The saying goes that ‘time heals all wounds’, but that doesn’t make the road any easier to travel.
Lys recently posted…“The Way” – Fastball
Wow. sad & beautiful is right.
Ps I dont think a kitten is a band-aid, a friend bought her boy a puppy at the insistence of his psychiatrist. It turned out to be better therapy than the therapyst.
Good luck with the move- you’ll love Melbourne
:0)
Suzy Mac recently posted…Alarming failures of a freaked out mum
Beautiful. Sad, of course, but beautiful just the same. Good luck with the move x