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بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيمِ

The inability for children (younger than seven) to process things is often accepted as normal, that they don’t have the cognative ability to understand certain situations. While this statement often has merit, every now and then something comes through that completely contradicts this and really brings things into perspective.

(For whatever reason, this has been a recent recurring theme, and I have no idea why/when it will stop).

Losing someone is never easy. I posted back in February that I had lost someone very close to me. This perosn was also a son, an uncle, a father and husband. My wife shared two things his youngest son (he’s ~5 years old) had said during that weekend (Feb 9-11):

• The wife of the deceased was crying (this was within two days of his death). The youngest son, uncomfortable with the sight of his mom upset said “Mom, why are you crying if dad is in heaven?”
• My wife was playing with the youngest son (same one in the previous bullet point), trying to make conversation about, well, anything. They came to the topic of his toys and favorite things to do and what he liked to play with. He mentioned he really liked to ride his bike. My wife, eager to engage in a conversation, asked who got him the bike. He responded that “my dad got it for him when he was alive.”

The second statement really struck me, as it demonstrated this child knew he was not going to see his father again. He understood there are two (high level) stages in life, alive and not alive, and he differentiated events by that time frame. The first one doesn’t really strike the same chord, as it comes from things taught from a religious point of view (what happens after death).