Parenting & kids - Talking about death to a 3 year old?

Avid Fan wrote:
My mother died recently. I used take my son over on a weekly
fortnightly basis (I saw her more frequently after work) I used to take
them out to lunch to try to get her to eat more.

I have totally avoided the topic. My son was in day care the day of the
funeral

Now my three year old boy has started to ask "Can we go to Nona's?"
What do I say?

I think you're going to have to talk to him about it,
and it will be more challenging because you didn't talk about
it at the time (so now you have the double issue that he may
worry what else important has happened that you're not telling
him about).
The good news is that kids tend to deal fairly well
with death. They don't have the lookahead ability to really
understand how permanent it is, so sometimes it's a little
less devastating to them in the moment. Explain to him that
she was very sick and her body wasn't able to keep going
anymore and so she died and can't be with us anymore. You
can add anything appropriate from your faith tradition, if
you like. There are lots of books for children, so you could
go to the bookstore and see if there's one that seems suitable
for your child, his age, and your beliefs. Often, the thing
kids worry about most when you tell them about a death in the
family is that you'll be next. You probably want to reassure
him that what happened to his grandmother is not going to happen
to you anytime soon. It's normal for kids at this age to be
sad when you tell them, but it's also normal for them to have
little reaction. It takes a while for them to process things,
and you can usually expect that the topic will come up at
intervals over the years as they grow in their understanding.
I'm very sorry for your loss--it's a lot to have to
deal with losing your mother and also having to worry how to
handle it with your child.

Best wishes,
Ericka