Wednesday, March 13, 2013

1 year later

Wow. I can't believe it's been over a year since I posted to this blog. I keep up with Eleanor's blog and photos and updates and whatnot, and keep up LESS often with my own private journaling....but looking back at a year...

My father passed away on Feb 14. Almost a year to the day after my last entry about him. Long story short, he busted his leg pretty badly (not allowed to bear weight for 3 mo), lost his job, and turned 65 all in a 3 week span back in May 2012. He essentially refused to rehab physically, and by late summer had essentially stopped eating.  A man who, at his peak surgery before gastric bypass, was probably about 380 lbs, died at just over 130 lbs.

He was always a man of excess, of extremes. But this whole thing has called into question how to talk about death with a toddler.

We had to put our cat down about 3 months ago. That actually helped to bridge the abyss, since my dad was already in hospice care at this point.  Telling Eleanor that Mouse was gone, that he had died. Not bringing up heaven or anything else. It's hard. It's hard not having the easy fall backs.

We have a photo on our mantle of my old dog and 2 cats, including Mouse. Eleanor has made some connection that Mouse and Chester and Stanton are somehow in the same place, whatever that means to her.

I admit, I made one mistake with my father and explaining it to her. I told her, when we went to Florida, that we were going to Grandpa Rick's funeral to say goodbye. We had gone to visit him in September. But when I said this, it's too vague a concept for her (she turned 3 the day after we got home). She expected to see him. But he chose cremation, so there was just a small gold box. She whispered to me "Grandpa's too big for that box". Which I actually thought was very sweet, but couldn't really go into details with her, so I just changed the topic til I was able to figure out how to address it.

All that being said, we've gotten through the next round of tough questions for the time being. I think this was the last year I'll be able to get away with no questions about Santa. We got a tree, and had a TON of fun decorating it with ornaments that were mostly centred around dinosaurs. And glitter. Lots of glitter.