This sweet little man.

I am backing up a bit in the story to talk about being immediately faced with the reality that we had to tell Oliver what had happened right after we lost Lucy. We had been preparing him for her arrival for months by talking about her and reading books about becoming a big brother. He watched us prepare for her by setting things up around the house. He knew that Lucy was in my belly and he watched my belly grow. But now at not quite two and one-half years old, we had to explain to him that his baby sister died. Talk about heavy.

A few different people gave us some kids books on this topic to help aid in our explanation, but they were mostly too wordy for how young he was. We plan to try reading them when he is a little bit older. We decided that we would just sit him down and talk to him about what had happened. We tried to explain it as simply as we could while remaining honest.

We told him that Lucy was born but that she was not going to come live in our house like we had originally planned. Instead, she would live in heaven with Jesus. We made sure to tell him that she was still his sister and that we love her very much. He, of course, wanted to see her and go get her. We told him that she died and because of that she is in heaven and we can’t see her right now. We told him that we are very sad and that we miss her very much. We could tell that he didn’t fully get it, but it was a starting point.

We were worried about what to expose him to and what to protect him from. We didn’t want to damage him. A counselor reassured us that we wouldn’t damage him and that kids really pick up on a lot so just being honest and open is best. He was there when we met with our loss doula, Leanne. He heard us talking through things and he saw us cry multiple times. We explained that we are sad because we love Lucy and we miss her. This was all a lot for him to try to understand.

He did make comments and ask questions after this. He mostly said things to Shaun at bedtime, things like, “Mommy and Daddy are sick” (from seeing us cry), and “Mommy is all better, the baby is not in her belly anymore”. But then there were moments where he would point to my belly and say, “that’s Lucy”. We always just keep it simple and honest. We re-explain things as he comments on or questions things.

Now that it has been a few months his understanding of the situation has grown, but of course he still has a ways to go. He still says things like, “And then Lucy will come down from the sky and I see her and I will hold her” and “Lucy will come and she will wear her new shoes”. There are obviously things he doesn’t quite understand and connections he doesn’t make, but he’s doing really well for being a two year old.

We didn’t see any kind of change in him after we lost her. He wasn’t in grief at all because of his level of understanding. He’s so little. I wish that we didn’t have to have these conversations and have this heavy topic happening in our family. I want him to only have to think about things like stickers, Legos, and his sandbox; not what death means. However, we really feel that honesty and transparency are important for us to model for our children. In a transparent household you see the good and the bad. Our hope is that although he is being exposed to tragedy, that he is also exposed to grace and redemption. Brokenness leads to the opportunity to see mending. In our weakest times our deep need for our Savior is most evident. We want to always try to do our best in setting an example for our son. We try to do this by sticking true to our character and beliefs no matter if we are met with joy or met with sorrow.