The Tough Questions

The other night we were watching one of those Hollywood entertainment news shows and they had aired a segment about Tom Bosely's death. After the segment, Jack got up from the couch and asked me to come upstairs with him. I could sense something was on his mind. When we got to his room, he got this really sad look on his face and started to cry a little. I asked him what was wrong and he said, "when I die, I'm not going to exist anymore". Ugh..... my heart just sank. I couldn't believe our 8 year old son thought so heavily about this. I gave him a big hug and explained, as best as I could, about life and death, and about God and Heaven and Eternity. He knows about God and Heaven from church, but at this particular moment, it seemed to really sink in with him of the reality over life and death.

I also had the opportunity to talk to him about my feelings when my grandparents had died, and when Jenna died. I told Jack that a time will come when we all begin to lose loved ones, and although they are no longer here on Earth with us, they still remain a part of us by thinking about them, talking to them, dreaming about them, etc. This seemed to help a bit.

This certainly made for a very HEAVY evening for sure. After I hugged Jack again, I thanked him for sharing his feelings with us and talking to us about what was on his mind/heart. As parents, we strive to make sure that our kids feel that they can come to us for ANYTHING, NO MATTER WHAT! We want our kids to certainly feel that they can. Open communication is very important in helping to establish a close relationship with the kids and we hope it will continue as they grow older.....especially when they encounter peer pressure.