Tonight, all the kids were in bed and I was trying to get some stuff done. After awhile my 8 year old son came out sobbing. He was crying so hard that he couldn't even tell me what was wrong. Everytime he opened his mouth to tell me, his words would become muffled in his crying. I held him and waited, wondering what was causing him to feel so sad. I'd never seen him so upset. After awhile, he was able to tell me that he missed Grandpa Dick and Grandma Gladys. Grandpa Dick and Grandma Gladys are MY grandparents (his greats). Grandpa died when he was 6 and Grandma died when he was 4. They were amazing people and we were close to them. They lived in our home since the time I was 12, my family of 3 lived there when Carston was a little boy, and when we left we still tried to see them a couple times a week. Since Carston was pretty young when they died, I was surprised he was feeling their absense so strongly. We had a really sweet hour as we talked about them and cried together. We talked about all the things we loved to do with them. We looked at pictures and talked about their lives. We talked about eternal life and the despair we would feel without it. We talked about how pleased they would be with all the good things he is doing in life. He said that everytime he thinks about not seeing them for a long time it just makes him cry harder. And he did. He wanted to know if he could watch videos of them when he woke up in the morning. And he went to sleep reading the book that was filled with pictures and stories of my sweet Grandma Gladys.
Death is hard. I bawled with my son and now I'm bawling by myself.
