Loss of grandparent

[Phos]

I assume there have been threads on this before but feeling in need of advice.

My dad died this morning. He collapsed and that was it. He lived a distance away so we only saw him a few times a year and the occasional video call. My daughter is 4 and although not really close to him due to not seeing him as much definitely knew her gramps.

How do you help a child through this? Its the first grandparent she's lost so I don't really know how she will react.

My FIL died in January. I just explained straight away that he had died, he had been in hospital and had not got better and would not come home. I said he had gone to heaven and what we imagined that to be ( depends on your own personal beliefs that part). Have displayed a nice photo of FIL where my 4 and 2 year old can see it everyday. 4 year old did not go the funeral as he was at preschool but my 2 year old did and he was fine.
I asked for any book recommendations and I bought 'Goodbye Mog' and 'Grandpa rabbit has gone to heaven'. We drew pictures for FI too.

So sorry for your loss .

That's good advice from Chocolate. Just wanted to offer my condolences, that must have been a shock

Thanks @Chocolatetrifle and @BunnyRuddington. It's hard because it was such a shock. He's always been so well.

@Phos, so sorry to hear that. Sending you strength at this really difficult time. One day at a time.

Sorry for your loss

I was in same situation as you this time last year, when DD was 3.5 years old. My advice - take your time - I decided not to tell her straight away. Like you we didn't see Grandpa regular enough for her notice, and I didn't want to say the wrong thing or get really teary myself when it was still so raw. So we started reading stories that had death in them (including the rabbit heaven one above - which is a good non-religious description of heaven) and I tried to talk about death naturally - spotting dead insects for example and basic cycle of life stuff.

I definitely did not want to liken it to sleep at all - did not want to create fear around bedtime/not waking up. My DD is bright and had good understanding - so I expected the 'will I die' and 'will you / daddy die' questions and wanted to be prepared and preferably not crying when answering them! When I eventually told her, I made sure we had plenty of time to discuss, or her to ask random questions later as she thought of them.

She was sad, tearful but not extreme, but we talked about about our memories and looked at photos. She did ask about herself and us dying - I was honest and said yes, but not for a very long time. This prompted googling the oldest people in the world which helped. I told her it was normal to be scared of the idea, but it becomes less scary as you grow up. We talked about the funeral and where he was now. More recently she has asked if we die will we always be together (her, me and daddy) and I said yes, that even if not physically our love and memories will always be.

Recently I saw another post on mumsnet where someone answered the 'where do you go' question as being like where you are before you are bornc which I liked - DD is always fascinated by the idea of things existing before she existed "in this world" as she likes to say.