Lately, I’ve been really struggling with figuring out an answer to “the question”. The question that I keep dreading in the back of my head each day. The question that the twins keep asking more and more of as the days go by. What happened to Daddy?
As they get older I feel the anxiety over answering that question grows stronger. How do I balance between not lying to them, but also taking into account their age? The other day as we were getting ready for school out of nowhere Wyatt asked me what happened to Daddy. It took me by surprise. Anytime they bring up Erik it takes me by surprise even though we talk about him often, I still get the knot in my stomach feeling anytime they say “Daddy, Dada, Dad”. That sadness that runs through my head all in that second from one word. The word that Erik will never be able to hear from his kids again, but also the word that they will never get to experience from Erik in their life again.
That one word that holds even more weight now that he’s gone. “Daddy, Dada, Dad”. It reminded me of how Erik and I had a silly bet about which child would say Dada or Mama first. Each of us repeating the words Dada and Mama over and over again hoping they would say ours first. Now all I want is for them to be able to say his over and over and that he would be here to hear it. But that’s not reality anymore. And so each time my stomach drops with the echos of Daddy, Dada, Dad.
I felt frozen in time as I tried to figure out quickly in my head how to respond to Wyatt as his eyes met mine. And so I told Wyatt, “Daddy was sick. His brain was sick and he didn’t ask for help. I’m sorry he’s not here with you anymore.” It wasn’t what I was ready to say. It had been a response I had thought about for them for a while, but I still wasn’t ready to say it. But I guess because I had been thinking about it so much it just slipped out to him at that time. “He was sick, mama?” “Why did he take medicine?” “Will he get better?” “Will I get sick?” That started a whole new conversation that I was not yet ready for. A conversation that I needed to still figure out for myself. A conversation I still needed to figure out responses for, responses that still wouldn’t break my trust with them and at the same time not scare them. Responses appropriate for their age. I wasn’t ready. But since then it has come back up a few times. And maybe I will never be ready. How will I ever be ready for these impossible questions? The questions that still shake me to my core.
