How do I tell my daughter....

I found out tonight that my former mother-in-law passed away last night. My daughter (who's 5 yrs old) was suppose to spend Christmas there this year. She was sooo excited when she found out and wouldn't stop mentioning about how she was gonna get to go see Grandma on her farm. As of tomorrow I'll have 7 weeks til my due date so traveling for the funeral is most likely out of the question for me and her father has supervised visitation right now due to a lack of relationship between him and her. He doesn't know how to talk about things with her (had an incident over the summer with him miswording things to her). At this point, I haven't had to really deal with death with her besides flushing fish down the toilet. This is the one grandma that she actually knows since my mom hasn't been around all that much and at one point we actually lived with my ex's family. How would you word things to a 5 yr old? Not sure if we're going to the funeral yet. Have an OB appt Monday.

Have her watch All dogs go to Heaven.

Afterwards ask her if she remembers all the doggies that were up there and Grandma needed to go take care of all the doggies in the sky, but like Charlie, she'd be able to hear her and see her still.

When she's older, she'll understand.

When I was 5 and my grandpa died (whom I was very close to) my Mom told me.
God needed your grandpa more than we do right now, so he flew up to heaven and we will see him soon. But grandpa can still see and hear you so if you ever miss him, just pray and he will know.

I understood and didn't have a hard time with it.

My son is three and we just tell him that God needed Papa to fix his truck so he can rumble up there. We lost my dad three weeks after my son turned one. My daughter will never know him, and neither will this kiddo. Really sucks.

But, he gets it. He has a fairly good grasp for three. I know its gonna be hard to tell her, so good luck lil momma.

I think that children are far more receptive to death and dying than we are as adults. I don't think you need to go into a lot of detail but I would tell her in as easy and clear manner that you can. It doesn't have to be complicated. Maybe before Christmas this year let a dream balloon go up to Grandma with a handwritten note from your daughter or something along those lines. Sometimes it is the simplest of things that eases their pain.