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Remember the heffalump? The formless, never seen creature that Winnie the Pooh was so afraid of? The allegory to the unknown?

Our heffalump reared its head last week not once, but twice, as both Hamlet's grandfather and then Rain Dog landed in the hospital. Pop-Pop had a pulmonary embolism. Rain Dog had radiating chest pain and shortness of breath.

On Wednesday we went to visit Pop-Pop. Hamlet has been in hospitals before--most recently after his baby brother's birth--but not since he began asking Why, to process the world around him. So I worked hard to stay upbeat, focus on positives. Like the construction going on across the street. Or the helicopter (a LifeFlight) coming in to land. We didn't talk about my father's condition or the tests he was scheduled for.

For the most part it worked. Hamlet did ask, several times the next day, why Pop-Pop was sick. "Sometimes people get sick. Most of the time they don't need doctors, but sometimes they do. And sometimes they have to go to the hospital to feel better."

This was the lesson he brought with him to the ER that night.

Again, we tried to keep it positive: an "adventure" at bedtime. That worked on the drive over, and for the first 15 minutes, when a little boy waiting for his brother entertained him while Rain Dog got an EKG.

After that it got more complicated. Rain Dog was on a gurney, in a johnny, when we were ushered in to see him. Faced with this evidence of parental vulnerability, Hamlet backed away and asked to leave.

I am sure he was confused when the in-laws showed up and the humor started to fly. He warmed up when the doctor came in and offered him a popsicle (new to our lexicon: "popicscle"). He slept in the next morning, as did Rain Dog. And on Saturday, when we all went to visit Pop-Pop at home, he got to see that hospitals do indeed help fix people so they can go home.

Overly simplified, sure. I'm just thankful that we didn't have to explain that sometimes people don't come home from the hospital. He'll learn that in time, I'm sure. Meanwhile, I'm grateful to everyone who helped him feel less scared--they made it easier for me to guide him through this time.