Children

So I'm sitting in a coffee shop this afternoon, spending a little time away from the babies. I'm really having a great time with them, although, I'm very tired. It is interesting to me to be involved in this part of a baby's life. I'm helping to feed and clean, but I'm not their parent. I feel very fortunate to be allowed into this intimate time in their life and their parent's life.
In being a part of this intimate part of their early life I'm reminded of an intimate part of my niece and nephews' lives. The time when their father was leaving this physical world. I've wanted to write about this for a while because even though it is not completely my story I am and was intimately connected to it.
My brother had three children, a 13 year old boy, a 7 year old girl, and a 3 year old boy. The youngest turned 3 on Wednesday before his father died on Friday. They had all had a horrible year in a house where their father was dying on their living room sofa. They couldn't make much noise especially in the living room. They spent a lot of time at my parents, their grandparents' house next door.
I arrived on Monday--my brother had been in hospice care for a week. On that Monday a hospital bed was brought into the house, specifically the living room, so that my brother might be more comfortable. All of this happened while the kids were at school. So I met the two oldest at the bus stop and I walked them home. I explained to them that a new bed had been brought into the house so that "Dad would be more comfortable." My nephew said, "I know. Mom told me all about it." When we got to the house my niece walked in, stopped at the door, and exclaimed "Everything is different. This doesn't even feel like my house any more." She was right everything was different. And her house would never be the same.
On Monday the home hospice nurse told my sister-in-law that most likely by Thursday my brother would get to the point where he could no longer get out of bed to go to the bathroom and that it would probably be best if he wen to a hospice care center because it would be too disruptive for the kids.. By Tuesday morning that was the case. So while the kids were at school, or in the case of my niece at my grandmothers because she was home sick from school, a medical transport came and picked up my brother and took him away for the last time from his home. (One of the most difficult events I've ever witnessed.) Once again I met my nephew at the bus stop and explained to him that Dad had gone to a hospice facility. I asked him if his mom had talked about this with him? He said no and then he said "but I"m kind of used to surprises now." It had been a year full of surprises.
We took turns spending the night with my brother at the hospice center. Well in reality we took turns staying with my mother who would not leave the hospice center. My nieces and nephews would go to my grandmother's house which was half way between the hospice center and their house. They would get fed and bathed there and then their mother would pick them up and take them home at night. She would spend the day at the hospice center but then felt it was really important to take them home at night, an attempt at normalcy. I took them to see their father on that first night. And the 7 year old said to him "it is okay to go daddy." She believed that he was going to heaven where God had a job for him.
The next night we were sitting at the table having dinner and the oldest one said that he was going to stay at the hospice center on Friday night. My niece responded, "that is if Daddy is still alive." She didn't say it with malice or to get to her brother instead it was just a statement of face. And indeed he did not get to spend the night at the hospice center on Friday night because my brother died that morning.
One of the nights that my brother was in the hospice center my sister was staying at my sister-in-laws with her and the kids in case my sister-in-law needed to leave in the middle of the night to come to the hospice center. My niece got out a toy guitar and brought it into the living room and said to my sister "I can play this in here tonight. Daddy isn't here." She could once again live in her house, a house that had been all about dying for too long.
I don't know if children are wiser or more innocent or any thing other cliche people can come up with to talk about children. I just know that they are little humans who feel what we feel. They deserve a life where they are protected and held, a life where they know that they are loved and accepted.
I hold these two twins in my arms and hope and pray that they have lives that are full of joy and love. I pray that their lives will be long and that their trials will be be small. But in reality I know that none of that is guaranteed. So for now I will love them and their parents will protect them. As the song from Avenue Q goes, "for now."