My daughter brought me to tears today. We were sitting eating lunch and discussing going over to a friend's mom's house later in the day. It was a normal conversation, but her simple and sweet statement left me needing to "get something from the kitchen" before she saw that I was about to lose it.
You see, the friend we were discussing lost her dad when she was sixteen. A parent's death is always a horrible tragedy, but she lost him in one of the worst ways you can lose a loved one. Knowing this and the pain it has brought my friend I was left scrambling when my two year old innocently asked, "Where her daddy?" I recovered quickly and told her, "He's gone, Baby. He went away." She thought about this a moment before replying, "He's probably at work." In her world anytime a daddy isn't around he is at work (now and then he is playing golf, but only rarely). She then went on to say, "She misses him...sometimes she cries for him." Knowing how true those words were broke my heart. Knowing my little one hasn't had to begin to understand that sometimes daddies go away and don't come back is bittersweet. I'm incredibly thankful she doesn't know it and yet I know the day will come when she has to learn that heart wrenching truth, even if it isn't first hand. Her words crushed me anew for my friend's loss as well. I know she has grieved and grown immeasurably from the girl who first lost the most important man in her life, but I don't think anyone finishes grieving a parent's death. It is a continual loss. I heard that in the little voice of my toddler today as she spoke those words, "She misses him...sometimes she cries for him."
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