“I hate you, dad!” Asher shouted to me in the kitchen, storming out for dramatic effect.
 
My son was angry. He was having an existential crisis, where he couldn’t make sense of his place in the world, how and when we die, and what it all means. He told my wife and me he wanted to die so he can see what it was like... and then he’d come back. Asher doesn’t understand how this whole life thing works. Neither do I. He’s six. I’m 44.
 
On this particular day Asher was angry about his lack of freedom. It wasn’t fair that I could do whatever I wanted and he couldn’t, he lamented. He implored me to understand how unfair that was. I explained to him that I understood, but that he was too young to comprehend the consequences of his freedom so until he was older it was my job to help him navigate it. He didn’t feel any better. He told me he hated me.
 
A friend was over and she asked me why I didn’t punish him for telling me he hated me. “In our house we punish the kids for using the ‘hate’ word. Don’t you?” she asked.
 
“Does it look like he’s punished?” I clapped back. Yeah, even therapists can be immature. I then self-corrected, and more maturely explained to her that my kids were allowed to hate me. Obviously I didn’t actually think they hated me, but I thought they were angry, and there are times they wanted to do something very badly, and the only person preventing them from doing that thing was me. That’s infuriating for them. I totally get it. If I were them I’d hate me, too.
 
My wife was out of town for a week, so I was single parenting with the kids. I’m not complaining—these days it’s actually easier for me in some ways. Navigating our different parenting styles is hard for all of us who are co-parenting. One night I asked the kids if they wanted to see a movie. They did. But they couldn’t agree on what to see. It turned into an argument. Asher wanted one movie; my daughter, Sydney, another. They were arguing with each other, and when that didn’t go anywhere they directed it towards me. Sydney, eight, pleaded, “I never get to pick the movie.”
 
Asher screamed, “It’s not fair!” I tried to get them to find a solution but it wasn’t working.
 
Frustrated, I asked Asher, “Have you forgotten what it’s like to be a parent?”
           
“I’ve never been a parent,” he responded, both of us embarrassed by the stupidity of my question.
 
“What I meant,” I continued, “is can you imagine what it’s like? You each want to see a movie and no matter what decision I make someone will be upset.”
 
Asher said, “It’s not that hard because you already went to school the most and we haven’t. You’ve been in school so it’s medium hard.” He then went on to explain some system where math would be useful to parenting but I was lost.
 
“Guys,” I said, “what if I want to see a movie and Sydney wants to see another? What would you do?”
 
Sydney piped in, “Can I tell you my idea? My idea is we do rock, paper, scissors, shoot.
 
Asher said, “I don’t agree on that. I agree on dad’s idea.”
 
“I don’t have an idea,” I said. “Sometimes parents feel stuck. Asher, pretend you’re a dad. It’s up to you. What do we do if I want to see one movie and Sydney wants to see another?”
 
Asher struggled for a moment, working it out in his brain. And then he seemed to resolve himself to Sydney’s idea. “I’ll just try rock, paper, scissors.”
 
They did. Sydney won. Asher cried. Then Sydney, as if taking over the role of the parent, gave up her own wants for her little brother. “We can see what you want, Asher. I don’t really like movies that much, anyway.”
 
I thanked Sydney, and said, “This was not easy, guys.”
 
Sydney said, “You love us a lot but it’s hard cause when we both want something and it’s different it’s hard for you to decide which one to do.”
 
“Right,” I responded.
 
“Definitely right,” she said.
 
Later that night, I was putting Asher to bed and I talked to him about his feelings. I tried to help him make sense of what was happening with him when he shouts out, “I hate you,” or he throws a toy across the room. He did a good job of expressing himself, and Sydney would fill in any gaps by answering for him from the bottom bunk. If Sydney sees me doing a mediocre job, she will interject a better explanation than I ever could have. I gave Asher a kiss and told him I loved him as I climbed down the ladder to Sydney’s bed. “I love you,” he responded, and I hoped at least some of what I said made sense to him.
 
I leaned in to the bottom bunk. “I love you, Sydney.”
 
“I hate you, dad.”
 
“Thanks, Sydney.”
 
“It’s opposite day,” she said. And then she gave me a kiss.

Last year, when my four-year-old son, Asher, first discovered that he would one day die, he cried for days. There was a point where I couldn’t get him to leave the house because he was lying on the floor, mourning his own impending death. I tried to explain that every living thing dies, but it did little to pacify him. I didn’t know what to do so I made a desperate decision—mainly so I could get us moving to wherever it was we were supposed to be going that day. I took a gummy vitamin from the cabinet and I brought it to him, cradling it delicately in the palm of my hand. “Asher, this is a special pill. If you take it, you don’t have to worry about dying.”

I skirted the lie. He won’t have to worry about dying. It doesn’t mean he won’t ever die.

“I won’t die?” he asked.

Crap. He got me.

“No,” I answer cryptically.

He took the pill. And then he picked himself off of the floor, wiped off his tears, and followed me out of the house. That night, he told my six-year-old daughter, Sydney, about it and she asked me to give her one, too. I complied, feeling kind of gross about it all. Over the next few days, my kids would repeatedly ask me if it really worked. I’d answer with vague statements like, “Perhaps.” I felt guilty about my lie, worried I was screwing up their understanding of death. But who wants to tell innocent children that life is fleeting and we will all eventually die?

I was a teenager when my dad died 25 years ago. At times I find it hard to connect to who he was, and what the loss is like for me. I feel the loss, but I don’t know how to connect it to anything. It’s like this confusing gaping sinkhole ripped right into the middle of my street, and since I don’t know how to fill it I just kind of avoid it, having built up a good sized protective barrier to make sure I don’t fall into the darkness below my feet. My siblings and I play a dark “game” of sorts. Our dad got sick at 48, and died at 50. As we each get closer to 48, we pretend the end is near for us. We evaluate our lives and lament the early loss of a life cut short—our own. There is no logical reason to believe that because our dad died young, of a random, non-smoking (non small-cell) lung cancer, that we will, too. But then we lost our uncle last year—my mother’s brother—to the same kind of lung cancer, and we wonder if it’s possible that science hasn’t caught up to finding the mutation in our genes we might carry from both sides of our family. Our maternal grandfather died of small-cell lung cancer, our maternal grandmother of breast cancer. Our paternal grandfather died at 60 from complications with his heart. We don’t have the most positive outlook when it comes to longevity.

My daughter, Sydney, thinks she can talk to our dead parents. The first time she told me this she was about four-years-old and we were driving in the car. “I can hear your dad,” she told me.

“Excuse me?” I asked, a little freaked out.

“I can hear Papa Neal,” she said. “With my special ears.”

A small part of me wondered if it was possible. Another small part of me wondered if she were mentally ill. But most of me knew she was just a kid trying to process death, and understand what it means, as she finds a way to incorporate it into her psyche.

“Please tell him I love him,” I said. “And that I wish he could meet my family.”

“I will,” she said. “He said he loves you, too. And he misses you.”

So my son thinks he’s living forever because I gave him a gummy vitamin, and my daughter thinks she talks to dead people. How badly am I screwing up this parenting thing, I wonder. My kids’ interest in death makes sense considering my family history—but also my wife’s history. My mother-in-law died when my daughter was three-months-old. Her death had a big impact on the family and “Grandma Carol” is talked about often. The kids know she died but they also think they can see her if they can get to the moon. Because that’s where she lives. Because my wife told them that’s where she lives.

A few weeks ago I got a phone call from my wife’s sister. “Dad fell and is being taken to the hospital in an ambulance. He is in and out of consciousness.” The fall, a result of his debilitating COPD from years of smoking, pneumonia, and emphysema, was fatal. Roy, their father, was septic. He spent a week on life support before finally succumbing to death, surrounded by his family, while we played him some of his favorite music. It was a hectic time, and the kids noticed we weren’t around as friends pitched in to help, and we all took turns sleeping in the ICU with my father-in-law. To prepare our kids, my wife and I told them that Roy, their “Poppi,” was going to die. Sydney cried silently, and Asher asked a lot of questions.

“Where are people when they die? Is Poppi going to the moon?”

“We don’t know.”

“Wait, Poppi knows that he’s almost going to die?” Asher asked.

“Yes.”

“And he’s very sad for hisself that he’s going to die?”

“Sure,” I said. “He’s a little sad, and scared, but it’s also his time. And he’ll be able to see Grandma Carol again.”

“Your dad’s up there, too” Asher said. “They’re all going to be together.”

“What are you thinking, Asher? Are you ok?”

“I’m just thinking that I’m so sad.”

“That’s what I’m thinking, too. I’m feeling the same way as you.”

Sydney spoke up, “He won’t be able to see Grandma Carol.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because he won’t have his eyes.”

“Why won’t he have his eyes?” I asked.

“Because just his skin gets buried.”

“No,” I answered. “When he dies we will bury his whole body.”

“Even the eyes?”

“Yes.”

“Will he go to heaven?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that one. So I told the truth. “We don’t know if there’s a heaven, but we do know you go in the ground. And then trees grow in the ground, and fruit grows on the trees...”
Sydney knew I was recording the conversation, and leaned towards the phone. I told them I would play whatever they said for Poppi. “I love you, Poppi. Please, please stay longer.”

Asher leaned over the top bunk of his bed. “But he cannot stay longer. Because when he dies he cannot just make magic with his hands to come back alive. He can’t do that. He’ll just stay like that forever.”

I hoped that despite Carrie and my missteps that we were doing enough to help our kids cope with Poppi’s inevitable death.

We had their Poppi’s funeral last week. Many of us spoke, telling stories about Roy and his life in a way he would have appreciated—with humor and honesty. I cried while eulogizing him, having the weight of his loss suddenly feel so real in that moment. I cried for my wife and sister, pained from the loss, and hurt with the realization that they are now orphaned and only have each other. I also cried when I realized what Roy had been to me. That while my father helped raise me as a child, I had no man in my life as I became an adult. And it was from Roy where I learned how a man interacts with his children, and I learned how to interact with a man. And now Roy was dead. I suddenly felt the gaping sinkhole at my feet again, and although I felt precariously on the edge of it, for the first time in many years I looked down and saw that it wasn’t as deep as it used to be; That my children, my wife, my friends, and my family, have helped fill the hole enough to where I can at least see the bottom. And I know if I do happen to slip, my fall will now be cushioned. And I’ll be able to get back up, fully intact, and climb my way back out of it.

After the funeral, the kids lie awake in bed and asked me questions about my father.

“How old were you when Papa Neal died?” they asked.

“I was 16 when he got sick, and 18 when he died,” I answered.

“What do you mean sick?” they asked.

“Cancer,” I answered. “A very rare form of cancer in the lungs.”

“Are you going to die?” they asked.

“I am. Everyone dies.”

“When?

“I don’t know,” I answered.

“I don’t want you to die,” they pleaded. I felt a pain in my heart.

“I will not die until you are ready for me to,” I answered.

“We don’t want you to die,” they said.

“I will be here for as long as you need me.” I gave them a hug.

One day, hopefully not for a very long time, my kids will have to deal with the death of their own parents. I know some of their questions are a way to try to wrap their heads around the concept of mortality. But they’re also a way of trying to understand their own mortality, and that of their parents. I wondered if Carrie and I had given them too many mixed messages. I lied to them about a pill that can keep them alive forever, Carrie lied to them that their grandma was on the moon, and they had no idea where my dad was because I have answered everything from “heaven” to “nature.” Are the kids of a therapist going to be in therapy complaining about how badly their parents botched the subject of death?

Last night I was putting my shoes away in the hallway closet. I heard Sydney ask Asher, “Remember when dad gave us that special pill so we won’t die?”

Asher said, “That was just pretend. It was a vitamin.”

Sydney said, “I know.”

I started to walk over and apologize for lying to them, but I stopped myself. They continued to speak with each other about death. And then that naturally rolled into a conversation about farting. Because farting is funny. And then they laughed, and wrestled, and fought, and made up, and went into their room to play. I walked over to say hi but they shut the door before I got there. Although I wanted to lie on the rug with them in a pile of toys, I stayed outside of the room; I’m not planning on going anywhere for a long time, but I know they need to learn to be without their parents. Because if I want them to believe I will be there for as long as they need me, I need them to learn to live without me.

Every morning my four-year-old daughter, Sydney, drags a chair into her closet and plucks a dress off of the rack. I try to lean her in other directions —“Why don’t we try shorts today?”—but Sydney’s stubborn. And I think she deserves the freedom to choose what she wants to wear.

My son, Asher, is 2. I grab shorts and a T-shirt out of the drawer and dress him, because he still has trouble dressing himself. But he figured out how to undress himself — and pretty often that means he’s ripping off his clothing and screaming “dress” over and over again. He climbs onto the chair in the closet and tugs at one of Sydney’s dresses —“This one.”

​So most days my son is dressed like Sofia the First, or some Disney princess, or — my favorite — rocking a multi-colored Ralph Lauren spaghetti strap sundress. Taking all social mores out of it, he looks good in dresses. And on an 80 degree summer day in LA, it’s probably the most practical choice.

(Article appeared in Huffington Post and xo Jane)