My middle child wanted to have a play date today with a girl I'd never met from a family I didn't know. Just from talking to the girl's mom on the phone this morning, I could tell we'd hit it off even if our kids didn't bring us together. Two talkers, happy to share stories and a laugh. So when Amy came by to drop her daughter off for the long-anticipated play date this afternoon, it didn't seem odd when she signaled that she wanted to talk to me away from the prying ears of children for a minute or two.
Turns out the 47-year-old woman who has babysat Amy's three children day after day over the years died of cancer on Christmas Eve. It had been a tough week emotionally, and, although her daughter seemed to be doing fine today, Amy wanted me to be aware of what was going on in case she became upset for what may seem like no reason or in case she suddenly said she needed her mom. She looked a little tentative about leaving until I told her that my first book, "Parenting a Grieving Child: Helping Children Find Faith, Hope and Healing After the Loss of a Loved One," was about exactly that kind of thing.
Then she just seemed stunned. She kept saying how she couldn't believe the turn of events, that this first play date would happen when it did, that I would not only know what to do if her daughter got upset but could also give her a copy of my book to help her through the more rocky terrain of childhood grief. And for the second time since first meeting by phone earlier that morning, we seemed like long lost friends who had simply never met because I, too, could not shake the feeling that our chance meeting wasn't so coincidental after all.
Many people don't even realize that children grieve just as powerfully as adults do, albeit in different ways. It was refreshing to meet a mom who not only knows the score but is aware enough to make sure other adults in contact with her children understand as well. She knew that her younger daughter would wear her emotions on her sleeve and would not be afraid to tell me if she was upset or needed something. Her older daughter, she said, was more stoic. She said that earlier today her junior high daughter was irrationally upset about her shoe, but the mom quickly realized that it really wasn't about the shoe. It was about something much greater, much deeper. That is a mom very in tune with her children and with the reality of life and death and how it can affect us in strange ways when we least expect it.
