Tomorrow, my three year old daughter is off to see her Great-Grandfather, he died on New Year's Day, she saw him a couple of hours before he died in hospital.
On Friday, she will be at the crematorium, if she doesn't shout out something along the lines of, "
Is he burned yet? Have they set him on fire? When do we throw him under that tree?", I'll be most amazed. I also don't care. We've had full and frank (and extremely funny) discussions about death, dying, burial, cremation, embalming, and she will be one of the most informed three year olds I know - we haven't tried to hide any aspect of it from her and have been totally honest, including our ignorance of what happens with his wee.
I hope this, along with her minder taking her to see the grave of a family friend, sets her in good stead for all future deaths she may come across, and not this bury-your-head-in-the-sand-in-the-hope-it'll-never-happen attitude most people (including me, up to a couple of weeks ago) seem to have nowadays.