Daddee Yah!

Grandad’s fish died. It can be easily replaced with another.

“I want Daddee to die.”

I didn’t fault her on this. She doesn’t understand the implications of the sentence, the stance, the consequences of such a reality. It is just a word to her; a verb even. It was uttered not out of malice nor defiance. To her it may have just been “I want Daddee to [take me swimming, run, jump-rope, dance with me]“.

In retrospect, I found my explanation to her to be effective- I think she got it; I hope she got it.

I told her that, just like Grandad’s fish, once I “died”, I won’t be around anymore. Forever (about which I was also unsure if she knew its meaning).

I won’t be around to play with you, anymore.
I won’t be around to take you to school, when you do start schooling (she knows “school”)
I won’t be around to see you grow up.
I won’t be around to take you swimming, anymore.
I won’t be around to you the park, anymore.
If Daddee died, you cannot get another Daddee anymore (unlike Grandad getting another fish)

At this point I couldn’t go further, because there has been only so little experience in her short life for her to understand anything more- I was going to say “won’t be around to see you graduate…”!

I think she got it, because then she offered “Only Caitlin & Mommee only ['cos Daddee isn't around anymore]” at which point she became somewhat sombre.

Above all, I am glad that these are the only analogies I could use.

~~~~~~~~~~~~ Updated 36 hours later ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for your comment, Toddler Daddy,

We had this chat when I was putting her to bed- it is (generally) our culture to put them to bed & not leave them alone till they are asleep securely.

Last night lying in bed with her, the very next night after this first chat, after all the normal chatting / bonding hee-hee-ha-ha, she became quiet & brought this up again on her own.

“I don’t want Daddee to be died..”

I assured her that I wasn’t going to, that I promise to look after myself (we had a chat about her recent flu & needing to drink plenty of water, etc), eating properly, being careful.

I don’t think she was fully convinced, either that or she was actually exhibiting early matured thinking process: In the dark I could see her contemplating something. At times I thought I also saw her eyes closed with quick 1-2 nods, as if reassuring herself of something… I had to check her cheeks to see if there were tears- she had teared before with “hush little baby don’t you cry…” but this is obviously something on the top of her mind right now.

And she obviously understood the implications from the first chat, to now really wish that it would never come true.

Quite a sobering moment…