Hey? What ever happened to Grandpa?

 

So a few weeks ago The Day finally arrived.  I’ve been waiting for this particular day for a long time…never quite sure how well it was going to go, or how my kids were going to react.   We were in the car (of course…weird, now that I think about it, we are always in the car when they ask their deep questions), anyway…We were in the car and Isabelle gives this very penetrating, thoughtful, “Mom?”  I was like, whoa wonder what this one is about, “Yeah, big girl?”  “So I was thinking and I have a question.  So we have a Noni and a Popi, right? (that’s what they call my mom and dad)”  “That’s right,” I answered, getting a little panicky in my stomach because I had a pretty good idea where her logic was headed.  This was territory we had never covered because I had decided to wait until they asked about it.  “And we had a Grandma, but she died,” Isabelle continued, “So what happened to Grandpa?”  The car got deathly silent, I was driving, but I could tell that Lilly and Chase had all of a sudden become ALL ears.  “OH Man,” I was saying to myself, “What do I say?  Do I tell them the truth?  If I do are they going to freak out and think that Daddy is going to leave us? OK, calm down.” At that point I decided to do what I always do, just tell it like it is.  “Grandma raised Daddy by herself.  I don’t know why, but Grandpa decided he didn’t want to be a dad and he left when Daddy was a baby.”  Boy was I sweating at this point.  The car was still silent.  “OH NO,” I thought, “I shouldn’t have just told them like that, they don’t even know what to say, they probably are about to cry or something.”  And then Isabelle says, “Wow, that is the COOLEST thing I have EVER HEARD!!!!!  Grandma was a STRONG single black mom!!!  She raised Daddy ALL by herself!!  She was a strong black WOMAN!! (seriously, it’s like I'm raising a mini feminist here…not really sure how that’s happening…….)”  And then Chase breaks in with his analytical little self (so cute), “And don’t forget she was a college professor AND a single mom! She was smart! That is really cool!  I think that was really awesome that she was able to do all that.”  To which Isabelle replies, “That’s right, she was a college professor AND a single mom.  I’m going to be just like Grandma when I grow up!!”   After Chase and Isabelle had calmed down after realizing that they had had a single black mother for a Grandmother this WHOLE time and had never EVEN known.  The tragedy, the questions they could have asked.  Lilly did have a few question about Grandpa leaving, mostly about “why would he do that?”  I just told her that I didn’t know why he did it, but our Daddy wasn’t ever going to leave because he loved us and we were sealed together in the temple and we were going to be a family forever no matter what.  All in all, The Day was a heck of alot more amusing than I ever imagined it would ever be.