You've come a Long way, baby

Sometimes I will be carrying on a perfectly fine conversation with the girls, and then Larkin will ask me a question and I'll open my mouth to answer...and nothing comes out.

Like this:

We were talking about Grandmommy Sharon and Larkin asked, "What is cancer?"

I wasn't sure how to answer, but I knew that our LIVESTRONG at School program could give me some tips. I grabbed my laptop, pulled up the website and fumbled through some sort of response that would make sense to a 3 year-old.

"Sometimes you get sick, like with a cold, because someone at school sneezes on you or they have germs and you touch something that they touch. But cancer is different - it's when your body gets sick on the inside. And you can take medicine to get better."

And then she asked:

"Why do people die? Is it because God lets go of them?"

That innocent question knocked the wind out of me.

My mouth opened and nothing came out. My eyes filled with tears. And there she sat, looking at me, waiting for me to answer her question.

"Why, Mommy? Why? Tell me, why?"

Again I mumbled something, something about God wanting people to live with Him instead of on our earth. That we won't go there for a long, long time. Then I busied myself with making their dinner.

She seemed satisfied with that answer, but I will be thinking about this for a long time.