What do you tell the kids?

I recently read the book As Long As I Live: The Life Story of Aharon Margalit by Moshe Gutman and Ruth Lewis. A fascinating, inspiring book (Thank you, Raisel, for your gift) describing how Margalit maintained his love of life and optimism through battles with polio, severe stuttering and cancer. There’s one part of the book that I found particularly interesting, which dealt with the question of what to tell his family, and specifically the kids. Facing scary diagnoses and medical interventions, he grapples with the question of whether to share this information with his children and grandchildren, whether to keep it secret – to protect them – and whether keeping all this secret would actually leave them feeling alienated and distanced while costing him a tremendous amount of energy that he couldn’t spare. He chooses to ask his sons and daughters how much they actually want to know, and he gathers all his grandchildren – all of them under 13 – for a conversation, preparing them for a period of time in which he’d look different and feel different, and welcoming their questions. I’d love to know what you think of this approach.