“Mommy, did Mimi leave her body at that house where ‘it’ happened?”

Oh I never knew I could have dreaded a question so much in my entire life.

We were having a totally normal, lazy late morning, not much going on.  Vienna was sitting up on the chair watching a show and just randomly turned to me and asked the question.  I’d really like to be in her head for just a little while… I’m not sure how she processes all this… but she certainly has come up with some interesting questions and she really seems to get it.  Her all of four almost five year old brain understands so much more than I ever imagined she would/could. Sometimes it’s a comforting thought… sometimes it’s not.  I wonder what questions have come up that I haven’t heard.

I know the questions that come into my head. And I know sometimes the questions or thoughts/comments that come up are not really things that I’d like to have aired in public. Though, since ya’ll know me, you know 9 times out of 10, that laundry gets aired and usually aired big.  It’s the blessing/curse about me.

I was in shock at the question; as much for my flashing back to the vacation house and beginning to relive the whole horrific affair as I was that my daughter was asking the question.  I actually had her ask me again.  So since Ziva was there and she doesn’t really understand even that Mimi can’t ever come back I told Vienna to go to my room and we’d talk about it.

My first question to Vienna was “well, you know that Mimi’s not WITH her body anymore, right?”  and her response was “Yeah, but what happened to her body?”   Ok, now it’s time to QUICKLY decide how I’m going to handle this.  If  you read my other post, you’ll know I had some issues after my grandmother passed, so, this is kinda a tough answer for me.  But this is how I answered.

Well, do you know how God made our  bodies?  The Bible says that He made us originally from dirt.  “Dirt? Why did he make us from dirt!?!? Its sooo un clean!” and I said, Oh but the neat thing is that He cleaned us when he made us from dirt… her response… “Just like he did when He died” WOW, really?  Just like that? She gets it. She really gets it.   But was it still at the house?  Hum…

So, I told her that when we leave our bodies that our bodies turn back into dirt. I asked her if she remembered going to Mimi’s remembering place and if she remembered that there was a spot that didn’t have any grass on it.  I told her we brought Mimi’s body back from the house and we put it there to turn back into dirt and that we put the stone there, not because Mimi is still there, but because its juts the best place we have to put a stone to remind us of her. Finally she was satisfied with that… I was getting ready to pull out the “I think that question is too heavy for you” answer.  There’s gotta be a way to lighten most questions…

I don’t like to use the “too heavy for you” answer too often, because I know kids can handle a lot more than we give them credit for.  I also knew that when I got that answer growing up it did not make me less anxious… in fact, I would often focus more on the question, trying to figure it out for myself.

My girls are still trying to figure out why Mimi’s gone. I’m still trying to figure that out too.  Why now, why so young, 62… really? Why, what caused it? Was there a reason?  How soon will it be before we send the next family member to heaven?  How will we move on? We’ve got a whole new way of life to learn with her.

But that’s another topic for another day…