I know that many people have seen beautiful Luiz explaining to his mother why he wouldn't eat octopus. But if you haven't please go watch it now. And if you are emotional like I am grab a box of Kleenex too, because its going to make you cry.
I cried while watching this mostly because I should sleep more and have wild hormones but the other reason is because Theo and I have very similar conversations all the time.
The first time was when Theo was just a little tyke, and before Maxx was even born.
While shopping in a market that had fresh lobsters for sale Theo (then just 2 years old) asked me, "Why are these Lobsters here Mama?"
To which I responded hesitantly, "Because my love, they are going to be bought by someone who would like to... have them"
"As a pet? Do they have other pets too like a kitty or a dog?"He asked curiously.
"No," I crouched down and held his hand. "To eat, everyone needs to eat and some people eat lobsters."
"No, you can't eat lobsters Mama, they need to live. I like them alive. We can't eat them." His face was now scowling at me to reinforce his point. I picked him up into my arms and told him I loved him. We finished our shopping and Theo remained thoughtful and silent.
Over the next few days I found myself explaining to Theo several times about the cycle of life. I felt like Mufasa in Lion King explaining that life was beautiful because it was balanced in a way that energy is recycled in many different ways through out the earth.
Then I went home to deliver Maxx and my grandmother was sick. So sick we called hospice and brought her home to be comfortable. Theo and I spent many hours by her side with my sister and mother. Family filtered in and out of the house and what I began to notice was they rarely touched my grandmother. Spoke to her, sat by her side but never created that contact. Theo though had constant contact, you could see the relief on his face when he found her hand. He didn't see sickness, he saw his great grandmother that spoiled him rotten with her love. I didn't want him to be frightened by death, so we spoke about it and I began to explain again the cycle of life. You know the one we all learned in biology 101, that all energy cannot be created only recycled, except in toddler terms.
When she finally passed away, I told him what had happened. He was thoughtful and asked who would eat her. Its a good thing that we were at home and not in public or it might have sounded weirder. But I knew exactly what he was asking, what was going to happen now? I explained that now that grandmas soul had left her body, we would bury her body and that in turn it would feed the ground, to feed the grass, to feed a cow or bunny or some other animal that would be eaten to feed another animal and so on.
Now I realize that in the cemetery my grandmother wished to be buried in there are no free range grass fed cows but there is grass and it helped him to understand that she wasn't entirely "gone". "Gone" is a scary aspect for a toddler, and I knew that it would help him to know that there are other ways for her to still be here. I explained that she was mostly now living in our hearts and memories but that GG's body was playing a large role in keep our lives balanced.
My now four year old is an advocate for life. He won't step on ants, he screams for me to not hurt the spider if I'm trying to move it back outside, and most of all he understand that death is just a part of living.
Children are born with this beautiful open clean canvas of a mind. What I would really like to paint for my children is life is beautiful, all parts of it, even the scary ones. So that they can be beautiful people that will change the world.
How do you deal with death and and heavy conversations like this with your babies?
<3
Dan
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