Heaven.....

With the recent passing of Grandma Mueller and Elvis, childhood dog (he died in September) the topic of Heaven has been brought up a lot in our house. When Elvis died I was told that it would be a great learning experience for Brenna and it would start her understanding of people dying and going to Heaven. She had to learn at some point that we all die. So when Elvis died I was honest with her and told her that he was really old and sick and it was his time to go to Heaven. We told her that Heaven was up in the clouds. So when we were outside she would tell us that Elvis was in Heaven and he died.

When Grandma M. died we explained the whole thing again to her and we kept relating it to when Elvis died. At the visitation and funeral she was a little confused on why Grandma was "sleeping" when she was supposed to be in Heaven. I was sure to tell Brenna that she was not sleeping, she was dead, and I told Brenna that after her funeral she would go to Heaven. I didn't think she would get the whole soul and body thing. That explanation worked for her until we went to the burial. So I had to explain the whole soul vs. body thing. I told her that we bury the bodies so that we can bring them flowers and come talk to them when we miss them. Our soul goes up to Heaven. She said, "That's so mean"..lol. So I had to explain that its not mean and we do it because we love Grandma (or whoever). I told her that we could take flowers to Grandma's grave, she liked that. So I think all in all, explaining the whole thing to her went fairly well. She still gets sad about Elvis and Grandma M dying. Which is kind of weird because she didn't have a relationship with Grandma M. Its not like we saw her all the time or anything like that. She's just a VERY sensitive child and I guess she can pick up on certain things. She'll also pretend that she's dead and is in Heaven, I'm assuming this is just part of the learning experience. I never thought I would be having such "emotional" conversations with my 3 year old! I definitely think she is very mature for a 3 year old!