Bath time without David is like Ernie without his rubber ducky, just not as much fun.

When the girls were newborns, my Mom gave them their bath since they seemed so fragile that I was too timid to do it. Once we fattened them up a bit, together, David and I bathed them. It was a special bonding time for the family. We have enjoyed this with the girls since infancy, we even mastered the art of minimizing post bath meltdown when dressing them up afterward. Truly, it was one of the times, we get to spend to undistracted family time (no iphone, iPad, TV etc).

As the disease progressed, David’s participation became less frequent. We  felt his absence because he always knew how to entertain them in the bath while I handled the business of getting them clean.

Last night at bath time, my younger daughter gave her Sister a broken toy asking that she should fix it. She tried fixing it to no avail and was so apologetic to her Sister that she could not fix it and said “I am so sorry it is broken, Daddy can fix it but he is dead”.

They both looked a bit down afterwards as I tried to cheer them up.  I also became down for the rest of the evening. As I talked to my younger one about her Dad at bed time she started crying and saying I want my Daddy.  While this was not the first time she has said I want my Daddy, this was the first time she was crying because he was not here.

Sometimes people say kids do not know what is going on, I am not convinced that this is accurate.  My younger one know that something is wrong, while she may not understand death, she knows he is gone.