A grieving child

I will be narrating a few pictures my oldest has drawn since her Bonus dad died.

Let me narrate this picture; She drew this about a month after he died. We were driving to PreK or home from Pre K when she said, “ mom look! This is babe in the box at the funeral. That is you standing beside him. All these dots are the tears we have cried.” When she showed me this, my heart hit the floor. Her way of expressing her grief has come in many forms, as has mine, but one of hers has been to draw about him. She drew a picture like this almost daily for months.

Left to right is S for Stella, L for Lucy, G for Gru, N for Nora, M for mom on the top row. Bottom row is M for mom, S for Stella, B for babe (kinda looks like a heart), N for Nora, K for Kari, and S for Stella.

She told me that the top row was Stella playing, Nora watching Despicable me 2 that has Lucy & Gru on there, and that I was making chocolate chip heart shaped pancakes (which are actually waffles but she can call them pancakes forever) for all of us. Hence my hands holding Hearts with dots. The bottom row is us all eating the Heart shaped pancakes I made, including her bonus dad “babe”.

As she explained this picture, it was Babe in the box (casket), Stella & mom crying, Dopey and nova, and her grandmother Gaga.

She drew this in art at school. They told her she could draw anything she wanted, and this si what was on her mind…. Mom, Nora, Stella, and Babe at the dinner table eating turkey and Mac & cheese. (She puts initials above everyone’s head)

Nothing can really prepare you for watching your child grieve. She loved her bonus dad like he was her own dad. The immense amount of joy in her eyes when she would see him or when they would play games together was so great. We talk about him every day. She even still prays for him. She has had a few visitation dreams that lit up her little eyes like the Fourth of July. And Almost every single day, she comes home with a paper from school where she’s drawn on the back of it, or our dry erase board at home and normally it consist of us and babe in some form. I’m thankful she is expressing it, as am I when I write, but it really weighs heavy when I can see what her little heart desires. It wants him home with us. I’m truly going to miss when these little drawings stop, so for now, I will cherish them while I can. I have to remind myself that she is grieving too, and just showing it in another form.