Many of you know that my family has been struggling for quite some time with David's dad, Bob's struggle with cancer. We know that chances are this won't be happy ending for us. For him, he will go and see his heavenly Father and await the rest to join him someday. We struggle with our selfish thoughts of how much we will miss and can't imagine him no longer in our daily lives, it's hard to even type these words much less consider that we will unfortunately be living them some day. While we struggle with our own personal thoughts and feelings about this, as parents, we don't want this process to be any tougher than it has to for our kids. Although the loss of a Grandparent regardless of your age isn't an easy one for anyone, we are trying to explain this process to our kids slowly to hopefully help ease their pain and maybe help us focus on something besides our personal pain as well. For the big boys, Cody and Sam, we've been pretty upfront with them and I think that they have a pretty decent understanding of what's ahead. But for the shorties, it's a different deal. I have tried to explain things on their terms along the way so they have some understanding. But I am many times at a loss for what to say. So I have tried to educate the kids on things that they could do to help.
Jenna has been 'growing out bangs' for a year now. What used to be her bangs are now quite long and have for sometime been long enough to tuck behind her ears. We have talked off and on for the last year, what she might do once they are grown out. Well the talk has evolved recently into possibly donating the hair that got cut off to Locks of Love. So we had to wait until there was enough to donate and still have some on her own head.........finally today was the day.
While I think that she understands now, throughout our conversations she's had cute questions, things like, 'Do you really think Grandpa Bob will like my yellow hair'? She's so cute, I love it. Well today while we were cutting and asking many times over, are you sure, I watched my little girls generous heart bulge with pride over what was her first act charity, one that she did without hesitation. Oh sure she loved the compliments and such. But I think that she grew today, and probably so did I.
Wiping a tear and wishing all five pictures would upload so you could see the whole process,
From Tulip~
KH
:)
