Tears

The little man looked at me and then asked why I was crying.  I wasn't but my eyes had filled with tears.  My everfilling and overflowing plate was just too full.  And there are things in their life that they are missing out on and it makes me so very sad.  I didn't have an answer for him, so he made his own.  He thinks I was crying because Papa died.  Maybe that too, who knows.
I was going to say I never cry, but I do.  Once in a very rare while.  Takes a lot to make me cry.  Like an overfull plate with children missing a lot of things.  And I have no way of explaining to them that the only uncle in their life is Pat.  Why they only got to see Nana Nita for an hour in 2015 when she only lives two hours away.  Aunt Tracy tries to see them when she can.  Why Mommy was ready for them to leave a day earlier than planned and tried to make that my fault.  I can't explain the loss we feel from Papa, other than that is how life is.
So while I feel sad about all those things and more, I don't explain that to the littles. Right now they don't know they have all this loss in their lives.  They don't have anything to compare it to.