I went in to work, and told my boss I would only be there for a couple hours.

The act of telling the CHENG about my grandmother brought the grief and shock back, and I it showed on my face, too. I took care of a few things, told my guys, and went home. When I got home, the kids were happy to see me, but curious.
"Why daddy home?",

the tadpole asked me. I brought the girls over to sit by me, and Jen took the boy off to his room. I explained to them, pretty much as my dad had to me, that granny had died in a car accident. One of them, the one who had been very close to my wife's grandmother before she died, took the news fine. The other, the sensitive one, cried, and had a harder time. Telling children that someone they know is dead is not a pleasant task. For a long time, wife and I bought replacement pets, or said that I "took them to work" instead of going through the hell of breaking their little hearts. I'm sure we've screwed them up by doing it, too.