"Remember the day Opa died?" Explaining death to a Toddler
When my father recently passed away, I was not only faced with death and that my father was now “gone” forever, but I was faced with explaining this fact to my three-and-a-half year old.
The weeks prior to my father’s death were already a trial, because he was not well, and I was all of a sudden thrown in the role of a main caregiver, a mother and teacher to my father. Later, this was almost a blessing, since my daughter was there with me every day, helping me take care of him. She saw me feeding him, dressing him, helping with him go to the toilet, and my husband helping him take a shower. My father refused to go to the hospital, so I went to his house at least twice a day for a few hours. In this situation, I began questioning our social structure, and family configurations. I was considering having my father move in with us so I could take care of him, and I thought about my husband and I when we grow old. Is my daughter going to be able to take care of us??
Compare to the “old days”, when generations lived together, grandparents helped raise children; children and grandchildren helped take care of the elders as they ailed. Coming from a very small and widespread family, I was the only one there to take of my father. I believe when for the various reasons that families are pulling up roots and migrating so much, we do not realize that we are not only losing the family support, but also the security of being taken care of when we are old. Look at the masses of nursing homes and assisted living complexes. There is a whole industry out there geared and ready to take our “old people” off of our hands, and take care of them in lieu of being paid. Many of us are not able to take care of our parents, out of financial, time, and space reasons. We have our own families and hectic lives, and being faced with this fact, I was very sad. And what makes it even worse is, this cycle starts when we give our children to a daycare center, instead of having family there to help us raise them, and we feel that this is “normal”!
My husband comes from a family of eight, and his parents and grandparents had a lot of children and grand children around them to take care of them, as they got older. It was never a question if they should be confronted with the “sickness” or ailments of the elders, or if any of them would join the funeral services if someone passed away, as these children of all ages are continuously faced with death. In our personal case, people were questioning if my daughter should attend my father’s funeral, especially since we had a viewing.
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