When Rick died suddenly last August, my son Brandon and his wife Lindsey were forced to quickly research the best way to handle explaining his death to my then 2 ½-year-old grandson, Jonas. They didn’t want to confuse him by telling him that his Papa “went away,” because he might think Papa was coming back. They knew he was too young to fully understand the concept of death (I still have many questions, myself) so they simply told Jonas that Papa was sick, and then he died. They explained that we wouldn’t be seeing him anymore, that he wouldn’t be coming back.
About the author
Katherine Billings Palmer is a technical writer, poet, and essayist from Garden City, Michigan. She’s won several academic writing awards, including first place in the University of Michigan Dearborn Critical Essay Contest for her work about poet John Donne: “‘The Sun Rising’: A Lover’s Boast.”In 2017, Katherine’s husband, Rick, died of complications from small cell lung cancer. She wrote a series of poems and essays about her struggles to cope with her grief. I Wanted to Grow Old With You is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.
Her latest book, A Widow’s Words: Grief, Reflection, Prose, and Poetry – The First Year was published in January 2019 and is also available on Amazon.com.
Katherine is a guest blogger for the Hope for Widows Foundation and writes about her grief journey at www.TheWritingWidow.com.
