Last night we had this 11 year old little girl stay with us. Her name is Cynthia, she and her older sister are soon going have to say good-bye to their mother, Jackie. Jackie is a six-something woman who smoked all of her life, ten years ago she had cancer, apparently she had a relapse. Two weeks ago we were told she had 6 to 12 months, yesterday the doctors changed the prognosis to 1-2. I was driving Cynthia to school and we were taking about her mom's pain. (her cancer has spread from her breast to her lung, to her brain, to her spinal cord) She knew her mama was in pain, but she didn't know why. More importantly she didn't know what lies ahead. When I was in graduate school I took a class on death, dying a bereavement, I even read a book on grief as a family process. I guess when I read I didn't project myself in the moment I will be in shortly. How do you sit down and talk with children about their mom dying. Especially there is no dad around. Amazingly some friends of theirs are moving up to live in the house and raise the children. I also know many people in our church community plan to help out as well.
I guess, without a material miracle of God we will find out if a village can raise a child....
