So we're going...

"Mom, can you take to me to the place where Grandma is buried?"

The tears fill my eyes immediately.

"I would really like to see it Mommy," Keegers says from the back seat.

"Me too!  I want to see it!" Courty pipes in.

"We haven't ever been there Mommy.  Have you ever been there Mommy?"

I have to compose myself before answering.  Because I don't know what to say.

I've been there once.  On an icy cold December afternoon.  When our tears fell and we put our hands on her coffin and said goodbye.  

I've stayed away.  

I've stayed away because I don't need the tangible reminder that my mom is dead.

I've stayed away because on that horrible day I convinced myself that her coffin was a magician's cabinet.  That whey they closed that lid, God allowed her to slip unseen out the back.

When Dad got the tombstone with pictures, and quotes, and high heels, and trucks, and horses, and anything else that he could stick on that hunk of stone, I stayed away.

"Don't you want to see the tombstone?" Dad asked over and over in the beginning,

"I'll see it eventually, Dad.  You can't live forever."

"I just can't Dad.  I'm not ready." 

He stopped asking.  

I've stayed away, but in doing that, I've kept them away.

I try to pull myself together.  I know that I'll fail.  Then through the tears I say, 

"Keegers, if you want to go Buddy, I can take you.  Mommy just hasn't gone because it makes me sad.  But if you want to see it, I will go."

"Mommy I don't want to see the statue where Grandma died.  It would make me too sad," my Suttie says.  

"That's fine Suttie Joe, if you don't want to go, you don't have to go."

"Maybe I do want to go Mommy," Suttie hesitantly decides.

I've stayed away because I needed to, but they don't want to stay away.  

They want to go.  Maybe they even need to go.

I'm still not ready.

I don't think I'll ever be ready.  

But they are.

and if I learned anything from my mom, it's that we take care of their needs first.