What I Told My Three Year Old About Death

What I Told My Three Year Old About Death (Photo: Gravestones in grass at sunset)

As I peered up between my legs at my ob-gyn, I learned that I couldn’t attend my grandmother’s funeral.

“You’re four centimeters dilated,” she told me.

“So I shouldn’t go to New Jersey on Monday then?” I asked.

“You probably shouldn’t travel out of state,” she responded.

She was right. My younger son was born that afternoon. Between not attending the funeral and the chaos of a new baby, I never told my older son about my grandmother’s death. He had only met her once, briefly, so it would have met little to him anyway.

But the whole thing made me realize how urgent it was to talk to him about death. That’s in part because my other grandmother is getting up in years. My older son (nicknamed Sprout) has met “Grammy” several times and knows her well enough. While her passing may be years away, there’s no way to know. Needless to say, I didn’t want finding out about her death to be his introduction to the topic.

But I had no idea where to start.

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