I Feel Like a Terrible Parent

I feel like a terrible parent. Aren't I always supposed to know what to say, what to do, how to make it better? As my kids grow older, the number of things I can make better seems to be dwindling rapidly...

About half an hour after I had tucked her into bed tonight, Little Mouse (who is eleven) drifted into the family room where The Chief and I were relaxing with a movie. She was clutching her two stuffed dogs, Polly and Ester (her names, not mine), and a little green beanbag frog she calls The Flying Frog of Doom. She folded herself into my lap and began to cry.

"I keep thinking about how one day I'm not going to be here anymore, Mom. And I won't be able to feel anything or think anything, and it scares me."

I put my arms around her and kissed her head, glancing helplessly at The Chief. I never know what to say when she comes to me with this particular fear. My gut reaction is to hold her tight and say whatever I have to say to make it better. But I cannot bring myself to feed her candy-coated platitudes to preserve her innocence a little longer. Besides, she's a pretty smart kid...I have a feeling she wouldn't believe me anyway. She blew the lid off the Santa Claus racket at the tender age of four...

I cuddled her close and I told her that no one really knows what happens because no one has ever come back to tell us about it. And that part of what is so scary about the whole thing is the not knowing. I glanced at The Chief again--Come on, say something helpful!--and started telling her some of the different beliefs I have heard about and read about. Then I told her that she wasn't always going to feel this way. That as you grow older, you start to accept the idea (do you? Or are you just too busy to worry about it much? I haven't quite figured that one out yet!). And that once you have a family of your own, you worry about it more in terms of those you leave behind than you do for yourself (that part is true...but at eleven she's got a way to go before she gets there!).

We talked a little bit about heaven and how that might work, and then The Chief told her that he found the idea of heaven quite worrying, because of all those people watching him go to the bathroom or take a shower. Then he did a wonderful imitation of his grandmother--complete with folded arms and glasses perched on the end of her nose--watching him and making rude comments.

Little Mouse went back up to bed laughing, but I always come away from these conversations feeling completely inadequate, and longing for the days when all that was required to make her world better was a cuddle or a diaper change. Those days were a lot harder physically...but at least when she was a baby, I could fix everything.

Writing Prompt: Write about a situation you have been in where you wanted to fix something, but knew that you either couldn't or shouldn't. Did you try to fix it anyway? Or did you leave it alone? Why?