A Hard Conversation

We finally talked to Danica about Rusty.

I don't know why I was afraid to tell her right away. We've talked about death with her, but those conversations were always instigated by insect deaths. I can remember how sensitive she used to be. She didn't want anyone to step on bugs and had a full report each day after school about what boy stepped on a bug. "That's not very nice". So we told her that it was o.k. because they would go to heaven to be with Jesus. Then I remember the time she saw the same dead bug over and over and she asked me why Jesus had not come for that one, yet. I then explained that Jesus came and took their spirit, not their body. She's 4 now and she uses terms like, "died" and "killed" to explain insect deaths. She seemed to be at peace that they would be with Jesus.

It was much different with Rusty.

It seemed to be a good time to tell her about Rusty since we were talking about someone who died. She asked me how the person died and I told her she was really sick. She wanted to know if she went to heaven and I said, "She sure did. Everyone who dies goes to heaven." Then I told her someone else died and went to heaven. She asked who. And when I told her Rusty died, she asked if he already went to heaven. I told her he did and she asked if we could go see him. I told her we would get to go to heaven and see him one day. I'm pretty sure what was registering was that she didn't get to see him one last time because she asked again, "Is Rusty in heaven already?" She was already starting to cry before I told her he was. She cried and said she wanted to see him. It broke my heart- I wasn't expecting that. Then she asked to go to Mema's so she can see if he was really gone. I told her we would go soon. She also asked if she could ask her daddy about it and I told her she could.

Joe was frustrated with me because he wasn't part of the conversation. I agree that I thought it would be a sit down between the three of us, but it seemed so much more natural discussing it when we were already talking about death. I told Joe I didn't think this was the end of this conversation anyway...he still needs to take her to the farm so she can see. I don't think she will believe it until she sees that he isn't there.