Parenting coach and columnist Meghan Leahy answered questions recently in a Washington Post online chat. Here is an edited excerpt. Q: My husband, son and I moved in with my parents when my mom was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer to help with everyday tasks. My son was 2½ […]

Q: My husband, son and I moved in with my parents when my mom was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer to help with everyday tasks. My son was 2½ years old. My mom just died and my son is 3½. I talked with my son after she died and explained that she was sick and her body stopped working. Every time I explain, he gets upset and says she is at the doctor and will come home soon. Sometimes I explain multiple times a week because something will remind him of my mom. Sometimes I get upset, and then he gets upset. Sometimes I just respond by saying Grandma is at the doctor because it’s too upsetting to keep saying she’s gone. Do you have any advice?

A: Grief is a process. It’s a lifelong, never-ending process. And although that sounds depressing, here’s the good news: If you keep feeling your feelings, grief changes from sharp and stabbing to dull and achy to twingey. Sometimes it bounces back to dull and achy and even sharp, but the trajectory is a sort of mental and emotional detente. All humans are built to deal with death because this is the gig: We all die. Biology or God or whatever would not have built us without helping us adapt to this reality. So, be good to yourself.

As for your son, a 3½-year-old lives completely in the moment. The future is not important; the past is gone. And because of this, he simply cannot grasp that his grandmother is gone. His mind can hold on to the fact that she often went to doctors, and he can conceptualize that because he also sometimes visits doctors. Other than that? He lived with

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