My Dad was a giant to me. Not just in the way that Dads are giants in their children lives, but he was a broad shouldered, big guy. He had a loud laugh and a scruffy beard, and during younger years for some of my cousins, they were terrified of him. This broke my Dad’s heart, because he LOVED little kids. During any family gathering, you could usually find him down on the floor, laying on his stomach, playing with them. He was unassuming, fun, and present.
Today should have been my Dad’s 53rd birthday. He died after an incredibly difficult and short battle with pancreatic cancer. He was gone before I got engaged, married, and before my two children were even a wish in my heart. I remember growing up and hearing about family members that had died before I was born and how special they were. I never imagined that my Dad would be that person to my children. Unfortunately, both of my husband’s parents have passed away as well. The majority of my children’s grandparents are simply shadows in their lives.
Sometimes it’s painful to hear my friends talking about the roles their parents play in the lives of their children. What I wouldn’t give to have my Dad just stop in on his way home from work to say hello to the kids, or take them on a surprise trip to the zoo. Our children have been so lucky to have extended family and loving adults that have filled those missing spaces with more love than we could have imagined. They are so young, they don’t even know what they are missing.
I’ve struggled with finding the appropriate way to honor their memory to my girls. We keep pictures of them up around the house, and talk about them whenever they ask who the people in the photos are. My husband tells the girls how he used to snuggle with their Grandma and watch movies, just like they do with him now. This afternoon, on his birthday, I’ll make my Dad’s signature rice dish for lunch, and share it with the girls. We all jokingly call it ‘Gruel’, just like he used to. As a family, we have borrowed from the Mexican Day of the Dead tradition, celebrating our own version this past year. We have special ornaments to hang on our Christmas tree to help us remember them, and we tell the girls the stories behind them each time we hang them up. We may not have them in our lives every day, but we are making sure that they continue to be a part of the new memories we are making.
The questions that those memories bring up can be hard to cope with, but I’d rather they ask me, “Did Grandpa die?”, then “Did I have a Grandpa?”. After some research and discussion, my husband and I have found some great ways to handle those hard questions. What works for our family are very open conversations about what it means when someone has died, and lots of reassurance and hugs. Every family is different, and there are a lot of great resources on talking to kids about death. I particularly like this one from healthychildren.org.
We have tried to turn our grief and yearning for our parents into opportunities to share their love with our children. These small moments may not seem like much to them, but they are everything to us. My daughters know the warm smile of my Dad because they see it almost every day in my favorite photo of him. And as we share a big bowl of ‘gruel’ together, I can almost hear my Dad’s laugh in my ears. And for that, I am so grateful.
