“Daddy All Gone”

Zoya has been talking non-stop recently. Everyday she seems to have 20 new words. I know she’s been trying to talk about her Daddy, but doesn’t have all the words. 

Last week I started telling her what happened. I always talk about him. We hug and kiss his pictures and talk about things he did and how much we love him.  But I knew she wanted more so while we had a quiet moment in the chair a little over a week ago I told her a bad thing happened and his body died, but his Spirit is alive and with God. I told her a lot more. I’ll tell her anything that is truth. Not the evil details, but the true truth, the spiritual truths. 

And she’s talked about it every day since then. Sometimes just says something about daddy’s body. Sometimes more. 

Tonight while we were getting ready for bed she brought him up again. And we talked about it all again. It’s so hard to know what to say, but I try to chose my words carefully and speak true sentences. (Especially since I slipped up and told her the balloon was going up to daddy because she is still talking about that). So we talked again and then I thought we were done and she picked up her head, laid it on my face and said, “I miss Daddy.”  And soon thereafter, “Daddy all gone.”

It was the last words that broke my heart. Until now, I think she’s mostly been just confused. She still sees him in photos and hasn’t quite grasped it. It’s hard to talk about the future with an almost two year old. In our first conversation I said something about the resurrection and she got very excited. How can I talk about something a long long time from now, that I hope is really soon?  And yet, that was the whole purpose of Christ coming, so how can I leave that out?  

She doesn’t have to know everything today, but what order should I teach her, and why am I having this conversation with a child that isn’t yet two?  

I always go back to Daddy loves us and we love Daddy. But that’s not the part she wants to know right now. Right now she’s just processing the reality that Daddy is gone. I can’t talk about spirits and bodies till the cows come home, but she can’t understand that. But just talking to her, carefully choosing my words because I know her childlike faith will believe perfectly. 

I’m just processing the reality. The headstone was set this week. I don’t think I believed he was gone until I saw it. How can she understand, when none of us can?  Death wasn’t meant to be. And someday it will be no more.