Death

Thankfully, Isaac's personal experience with death has been limited to dead bugs, and a few dead birds, found in our yard. (He will also tell you that the bears that used to live in the woods around here are all dead.) He hasn't seemed interested in discussing death, and he's certainly never been emotionally affected.

But the other day at dinner we were talking about my uncles, and I was trying to explain their relationship to my father. "Uncle Curtis is Opa's dad," Isaac finally concluded. Nope, we said. "Opa doesn't have a dad," Isaac said solemnly. Nope, we said. So I explained that Opa's father was dead.

We then waited to see what Isaac would say. He was deep in thought. It was clear that he understood that this meant that Opa no longer had a father, and that he found this a little troubling.

"People die," Isaac said. Yep, we said. "Birds die," he said. Yep, we said. "Some do," he said. Then he added cheerfully, "Some don't!" (I decided not to counter this particular point.)

Then he asked, "Why dead?" That seemed like a complicated question, so instead I told him that Opa's dad had lived to be a very old man, and that Opa himself was an old man by the time his father died. (Sorry, Dad. Only from a two-year-old's point of view, of course.)

"It's okay," Isaac said. "Oma take care of him."

- - - - -

When Craig and I were talking about this response later on, I wondered why Isaac hadn't said that my father's mother could take care of him, as she is still living. Wouldn't she have been a more natural substitution, especially from a child's perspective?

Craig thought that Isaac had simply observed the family dynamics -- for one, my grandmother is physically frail, so everyone takes care of her instead. And my parents do take good care of each other.