7th
two 3 year olds (and God)
joe demling passed away yesterday afternoon. for those of you who don’t know, he is my nieces’ grandfather, a legend at trinity high school, and an unbelievable father & grandfather.
in this experience i was able to gain some perspective from the least expected place. i picked up my 3 year old niece and took her to the park to play with my 3 year old daughter and i had told my daughter that her cousin’s poppy had died and that we probably shouldn’t talk about it unless she wants to. i guess i was trying to protect them both, or maybe trying to protect myself from having to answer tough questions. anyway, without my prompting here is a list of statements from a conversation between two 3 year olds:
“why did your poppy die?”; “my poppy is in the sky, over there!”; ”he’s in Heaven with Jesus”; ”how did he get sick?”; ”i can’t see him anymore, but he can see us”; ”if i want to talk to him i just say ‘HEY POPPY’ and he’ll hear me”
every statement very matter of fact, yet always looking for a that glimmer of approval from me. i don’t know if i answered everything perfectly, but as a dad/uncle you are always learning from your mistakes, and there are so many of those to learn from. but as usual i learned a lesson from two 3 year olds and their conversation between themselves and God.
