#336 What would you say?

My 4 year old is over the moon in love with the baby. He’s constantly touching him, hugging him, holding him or bringing him toys. It’s really sweet. Yesterday he was holding the baby and telling me that he had to be gentle because babies are fragile. He then went on to elaborate that fragile means breakable and that he didn’t want to break our baby. He didn’t want our baby to die like Uncle Eric had died. Heartbreak.




Next he told me that he was sad that Uncle Eric had died and he wished that hadn’t happened. He missed Uncle Eric. Then he asked me if Uncle Eric was going to be dead forever.



Somehow we got onto the fact that everybody dies and he got scared and told me he didn’t want to die. I told him it wouldn’t happen for a long, long time; not until he was an old, old man. (Luckily he didn’t ask me how I knew.) He still didn’t want to die. So we talked about how no one wants to die.



Then he told me again he wished he could see Uncle Eric. I asked him what he would say to Uncle Eric if he could come back. I was clearly hoping for something sweet and poignant, maybe something to lead to a longer discussion or something cute and bloggable.



He said, “I thought you were dead.”



Well, that about sums it up. That’s pretty much what we would all say if Eric came strolling back into our lives now. Not really what I was going for though….