Saying Goodbye to Grandma and Explaining Loss to Kids

This past weekend we found out that my Grandma had passed just shy of her 93rd birthday after battling Alzheimer's for some time. She has been such an important person in my life as well as my kids' lives so although it wasn't a complete shock, loss is always hard when you love someone as much as we all loved my Grandma. Chris and I discussed the fact that we were going to need to tell the kids and I wanted to do it early enough on Sunday so that they would have time to really process before school on Monday.

To my kids, she was "Great-Grandma" and I knew they would be impacted by her loss just as much as I was. When Chris and I sat them down, we tried starting by explaining that she had gone to heaven. After some clarification for Kailey, Cody turned to us and said "so, she's dead?" and we couldn't help but laugh at the bluntness of his question. All were emotional as expected but they also carried lots of questions that were challenging for Chris and I to answer. 

I was worried and stressed for a few days about what we should do with the upcoming service for her. They had been to the church service when my other Grandma had passed years ago but this service was going to immediately follow the viewing and I wasn't sure how we would explain or how they would handle an open casket. We felt pretty strongly that it was important for them to be there for the service to have an opportunity to say goodbye. As much as all parents have this feeling of wanting to shelter their kids from pain, we also believe that loss is a part of life and if we give them the tools to handle it, then we can't totally shield them from all of the discomfort. Despite this, I was still pretty worried. It turns out, I didn't need to be as they handled the day as well as can be expected. They hung out in a different room during the viewing, sat with our family during the service, and each made their own choice about whether they wanted to come with us to say our last goodbyes. Kailey opted to go back to the other room but the boys wanted to come with us to say goodbye. Each child handled the day slightly differently, Colin offering comfort to others, Kailey being more of the emotional one, and Cody asking lots of questions. I was really proud of them for being there with us to say goodbye. 

In loving memory of my Grandma...