Conversation with my daughter

Dechen, my three and half year old daughter and I talk so many things – in fact almost everything on earth.

I must have intended to write something a month back. I had begun this first sentence and left there. I’m here today to write about how children’s brain works – fascinated and curious all the time. It is usually at night when we are going to bed that we talk very, very intimately and it is inconvenient for me to write about what we discuss then. Later, the mood to write about it disappears, or something else that takes my attention always comes up.

On Friday, I heard the news that a person I know from my college lost her mother and my husband and I were discussing to go to her house to pay condolences. I had to explain to my daughter that someone had passed away and I needed to go to pay condolences (Abi thur eie awa la dang, mummy de le khe le la nadu?). Her question was, ‘Hang ten eie awa? Ebi gi eie awa? (How did she die? Who ‘killed’ her?). I cannot explain death to her in detail, so I told her that it was Drenakchung (the Dark Demon that takes away people after death if they had not lived righteously). Then she had series of questions of how.

There was another moment we discussed death. We were watching the movie, ‘UP’ and suddenly she realized that the actor there was alone and his wife was no longer with him. She asked, ‘Roka charo abi oya?’ (Where is his grandma friend?) That time, I told her that she went to another place. Then she wanted to know what that another place was like and so many other things. Questions go on…forever. But I am glad that for now, I am there to answer her. Sometimes I have to tell her that I don’t know the answer. And I am glad too that it doesn’t disappoint her.

Yesterday we went to Paro to listen to teaching from one of the Buddhist masters. She put on sandals (tok tok slippers in her words) against my advice and again once we were there, she played in the stream with her slippers on. And just as I warned, her slippers stripped off. She bugged me throughout the journey back home to buy her similar sandals of blue color. I explained that I did not have money. This morning, when I went to the ATM to withdraw money, she remarked, ‘Mummy ma se wa, tiru ma wa yek chowa la. Tiru la mai.’ (Mummy didn’t know that she had money but she does have it). We speak up something and it sparks up her curiosity and from there on, the conversation goes on and on.

Anyway, this is just a small record of what is happening in my life. Mothers will know how exciting it is to have their little one nudge them every now and then and let their head spin equally. I’m blessed.