And the Answer Is...
By Catie of Woman Links I was blind sided by one of "those" questions this morning. If you are a parent, you know the ones I mean. The kind of question you practice answering as soon as you realize you are about to be a parent, so that your wise answer will be ready when the time comes. Why is it the carefully thought-out scripts I have in my head for these times, never get used? This morning I read to my oldest son as my youngest, in his Gymnastics class, moved his little body in a manner that would cripple me. The story included a cartoon drawing of Arthur (the aardvark) and the gang tramping through a ceMETAry on Halloween. As I closed the book, my son asked "what is a ceMETAry and why does it look so scary?". I had a really great speech ready, honestly, I did. My brain was so side-swiped by a question I didn't expect that I'm just not sure what happend to my pearls of wisdom. I frantically scrambled for an explanation that would honestly answer his question with causing too much trauma. What I came up with went something along the lines of "Wow, that is a tough question" (I've learned this is always a great intro when I have no idea how to answer a question-I highly recommend this) "Well sweetie, you know that when something dies, its body just doesn't work anymore and its spirit goes to live in Heaven with God, right?" (please say yes-he did)"Well, a ceMETAry is a place to bury a body that has died, and those creepy looking things are called headstones. They made them look scary here for the book, but really they are just pieces of stone with a person's name and a little bit about them" "So you can visit and dig them up?" (clearly, my son doesn't fully grasp this "death" thing) "uh, no honey, if someone has died, you don't dig them up. Their body is there, but that person's spirit is not ever buried" "oh, so its a bunch of bones like the dinosaurs" (sighing, because it looks like I'm off the hook here) "Yes sweetie, like that". Well as he was ready to move onto something else, I had a sudden inspiration of parental brilliance. I told him if he would ever like to see a real cememtary, and see that they are not scary, I would take him to were his Grandma Kathryn is buried. This was a big deal for me. My mom passed on when I was 10, so to my son, she is nothing more than a photo and a name. I flushed with my brilliance, congratulating myself on my inspiration, knowing this is a great way for him to feel connected to a grandmother he has never met. My son shrugged "That's cool, will you read me a train book now" That hissing you hear was my parental ego taking a nose dive. It's funny, I always thought parenting was some deep dark instinctual phenomomon that just happened. Little did I know that parenting really is flying by the seat of your pants, hoping you did your best at each unexpected turn. -Catie
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