She asked the QUESTION

Last Friday Mari asked the question as I was loading the car up with my load of groceries from Costco.  The one I dread.  No not the baby one.  I actually don't really dread that one that much.  Nope it was this one.
Mari: "Where's my Grandpa?"
Me: "You mean Papa?  He's at his house." (giving the answer strongly suspecting she doesn't mean Papa since she didn't say Papa.)
Mari (very emphatically): "No, my Grandpa not my Papa!"  
Me:  Your Grandpa's in Heaven with Jesus and Heavenly Father.  He got really sick and couldn't get better so he died.  Sometimes people get sick from things that they can't get better from."
Mari: "He's dead?  Why's he dead?"
Me: "He got sick, not like a cold, but something that made him really sick and he couldn't get better."

The conversation continued for a few minutes as she questioned and I clarified.  But she asked the question I dread.  And it won't be the last time she asks version of "Where's my Grandpa?"  It's a punch in the gut because it brings back the pain.  How do you explain to a small child Terminal illness, death, and absence? It's not easy as my experience with Aiden has shown.  But that experience has also shown me it gets easier.  Because over time the questions stop being about him being gone to who he was, what he was like, and what he meant to me.

All I can hope is that I can, along with the help of family and friends, fill in the gap by answering questions as she wants to, like her brother, know more about the man who was her grandfather.