Our family has a fine line that we choose to cross everyday. It is always the quandary of answering the question of how many children you have, or for Tony and David how many brothers and sisters. And we stand daily at the fine line of do we tell or not. It came up today at a new doctors office. We squirmed just a bit and answered "yes it just these two children", but we all felt the guilt of not recognizing Joe. Not that we have forgotten him, it is just we don't want to explain and see or hear their hollow condolences. To be honest they don't know us nor did they know Joe.
I still struggle with our answers, not to ignore Joe, but not wanting to have to explain. And everyday I stand on that fine line as does Mike, Tony and David.
Diane,
ReplyDeleteI remember when we moved into our Florida neighborhood and met the family across the street. My usual get to know you question is how many children in your family? The husband and wife looked at each other and at me and after a very awkward silence said we have a son and a daughter. They too did not know how to best answer that question. Their first born, a daughter was tragically hit on her bicycle, an accident everyone in town knew about but being new to the area we did not know. We learned of this a short time later.
So I guess you have to answer that question as you see best, what is the least painful in the situation.No one would ever fault you for how you answer, especially not Joe.