Last night Big A and I had a very interesting bedtime conversation... The bedtime routine started out as usual, I read the girls some books--two about flower fairies and one about Halloween (or as Little A puts it, "howeentime"). Then we turned the lights out and Big A proceeded to begin her usual litany of questions-- first it was how are baby crabs born?, then when do baby birds know when it is time to hatch from the egg?, then she moved on to questions like did they have such and such back in the "Olden Days" (Translation-- when I was a kid!). I have repeatedly explained that I did not live in the olden days, but Big A insists that I did. One of the questions was whether or not we had bunk beds in the olden days. I said that I didn't have bunk beds, but my brother Grayson did.
This is when the conversation gets interesting... Big A asked in a totally serious manner, " Mommy, why did you kill your brother?" I said "What?!" She said " You know, when you killed your brother, why did you do it?" I said "Sweetie, I didn't kill my brother, he just died" ( For those who don't know, my little brother Grayson died from when he was 2 1/2 yr old and I was 6 yrs old). She said, "but you said the things you said killed him". I said that no, he died because he had a bad heart problem. Then she asked how a 2 year old can have a "heart attack", and I explained that he had a bad congenital heart defect and it caused a disease in his lungs called emphysema, and that is why he died. She asked why he got the heart problem and I said because he was born that way--his heart did not form properly while he was in Nana's belly. She said but why did it not form properly, and I said that I didn't know, sometimes things like that just happen. She then asked "What did his heart look like?" I said that part of his heart was probably larger than it should have been because it had to work so hard. Then she asked if Little A would die because of her heart (she also has a congenital heart defect). I said no, Little A is doing just fine, and her heart is not as bad as my brother's was.
I asked her why she thought that I had killed him. Then it occurred to me why... Once I told her the story of the time that I was pulling the waggon and Grayson fell out and broke his collar bone. I explained the story again, and I said that he didn't die when he fell, he just had to go to the hospital. She just said "oh, okay". I had also told her once that after my brother died, I was always very sorry for the times that I had talked mean to him and picked on him, and because he was gone, I couldn't apologize. Maybe she misunderstood and thought that the mean things I said to him had caused him to die. I tried to explain again that my mean words had not killed him, but that after he died I always felt sad that I had picked on him. Even though that is what big sisters do, I wished that I hadn't done it. I guess when I originally told her this I was trying to explain to her that she should always be nice, kind, and understanding of her little sister-- she should never pick on Little A, because Little A idolizes her, just as Grayson idolized me. I didn't mean for her to think that I had killed him with my words. I think that I explained it in a way last night to make her understand this. But who knows, after all I had no idea that she was thinking this whole time that I had killed my brother! I need to really watch how I explain things to her. She asks so many questions, that sometimes I think I forget that she is only 4 years old. Even though she is very smart, she is only a small child and is not mature enough to get some concepts. Now that I have convinced her that I am not a murderer, I will try to be more careful.
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