When DD was 3 my father died and she was totally devastated. No one was able to tell me what to do to help her through it because no one had ever seen a 3 year old react the way that she did. She got it. She got all of it. The permanence that is supposed to be incomprehensible for kids this age hit her like a ton of bricks.
Fast forward 5 years and my brother is going through treatment for a stage 4 cancer diagnosis. We decided not to say anything to DD - she has raised several thousand dollars for the American Cancer Society over the past few years just because it was something she wanted to do. (There's a big Relay for Life event at DH's university every year and she wanted to do a lemonade stand to support it. It kind of took on a life of its own.) Our hope is he pulls through and we can tell her then that she helped to save him. If he doesn't we can tell her that her efforts helped him to fight it. It's been 9 months now and he still fighting. He lives 3000 miles away so she hasn't seen him. That plan has been working until...
Last night DH's mother went into ICU and the doctors don't expect her to survive. She turned around late in the night but it is probably only a matter of time. DH took DD to visit last month so she knows her grandmother is on oxygen and much weaker than she remembered. I know DD is older and more mature now - she has been through numerous death since my father so has a true understanding of it. I just don't know the best way to prepare her.
DD spent her early years in a household full of older pets and watched each fade slowly away and helped care for them. When each of them died she knew it was the right time - we had done all we could for them. Her grandmother lives several hundred miles away and her uncle several thousand so she is not seeing any kind of daily decline. I don't want to worry her too far in advance but I don't want her taken by surprise either. Any suggestions?
