Grandpa’s Getting Chemo for Christmas

The holidays are here and this year for Christmas, Grandpa’s getting chemo. Our daughter Chiara is too young to be worried about it. She’s not quite four years old. We probably don’t even need to mention it, but that sets a bad precedent. At what point do we decide that she’s “old enough to know?”

Last year when Grandpa had surgery, she definitely wasn’t old enough to know. We just included Grandpa in our “special prayers” and left it at that. But in a couple of weeks she and her daddy are going to visit Grandpa. I want her to know that it’s important for her to be very good and very helpful. Three years old may be too young to talk about chemotherapy, but it certainly isn’t too young to talk about compassion.

A year and a half ago, I was pregnant and felt sick all the time. I had to explain to Chiara that I was too tired to play and too sick to read books. And so she took it upon herself—in her two-year-old way, of course—to read books to me. I guess she figured that that’s what you do to make people feel better. Our honesty and openness gave her an opportunity to be proactive. She was right; I did feel better, and touched, proud and amazed. Out of the hearts of babes.

My hope is that if Chiara knows the abridged version of why Grandpa feels sick, she might devise her own way to be helpful and cheerful and compassionate, with the kind of honesty and purity that only a child can deliver. Besides, Grandpa will be tired. Grandpa won’t be hungry. People will be acting differently. It’ll be the elephant in the room. Chiara will know something is going on. I might as well tell her in a way that she can understand.

So I have decided to tell her that chemotherapy is like removing a splinter. Chiara hates splinters, but she hates tweezers even more. She knows the tweezers are a necessary evil, but they hurt, so it’s difficult for her to sit still enough to get the job done. The last time she had a splinter was at our family reunion over the Labor Day weekend.

“Grandpa’s the best at taking out splinters.” Grandma told her.

Grandma was right. Grandpa, in that sweet, strong way that only grandfathers have, coaxed Chiara out of the corner and gently removed the offending sliver.

That’s what I will remind my daughter. Splinters hurt and tweezers hurt, but sometimes we need to be very brave and do the thing that makes us feel very bad before we can feel better. And when people like Grandpa have been very brave and feel very bad, they need lots of gentle hugs and special prayers. I think she’s old enough to understand that.