I completely understand the desire to shield a child from the hard thruth that his father is never coming home....but what is harder:
1. Your father is gone and in some other place, we cannot take you there and cannot really explain to you why you can't get there, or why your daddy won't come back to see you, but that place is really great and your dad is fine. Just, you know, there....and not here.....forever. I'm so sorry.
or
2. Baby, your daddy died. There was an accident and he was hurt too badly for the doctors to save him. I'm so sorry to tell you that, honey. He is not going to come back because his body was hurt and stopped working and died...but his spirit is as light as air, like the wind and the love and light inside of him, went back to the stars. That is why, even though he is gone, if you go inside your heart and are very still you can always feel his love...because his love can never, ever die, just like our love for him will never stop. He didn't want to go away from you, he loved you so much, but he is not coming back.
With option number one, you are basically telling this child that his father is in a wonderful place somewhere...but that you can't take him there and you won't/can't say why. Can you imagine how confused you would be at three...just big enough to understand that there are logistics involved in everything you want to do....but not old enough to understand subtlety and euphemism. So, this child is trying to figure the logistics of getting to this wonderful place where his father has gone...and can't get much more than a vague sense that none of his guesses are quite good enough ways to get there. Forget about the pain and confusion of trying to understand why his dad just up and left and went there one day and now won't come back even though this child would give ANYTHING to have his father back. You know?
The ideas your are going for in explaining this kind of thing to a kid are:
1. He loved you so much and it wasn't his choice to go. If there were any way AT ALL for him to come back he would....
2. But he can't, because he is dead. His life is over and he can't come back...
3. But we will always love him and remember his love, you can always go inside your still heart to remember him and feel his love....
4. ...and that is how he will live on inside our hearts and in our memories, even thought we have to find a way to move on from how much it hurts us that he is gone.
He is gone...but we will never stop remembering him. We are still here and we will build a life that he would love to see and we will always make him a part of that life by talking about him and never forgetting all of the wonderful things about him.
A book I really, really love:
http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Ridge-Paul-Goble/dp/0689717318
A truly incredible book, one I loved as a child and one my child loves now. We talk about death a lot in our house...not in a morbid kind of way...we raise animals for meat and I always wanted to make sure that our kids have "right" spirits in the realm of death, how heavy and important it is when a life, even just the life of a rabbit or a chicken, ends.My DD understands that everything dies..from flowers to people...because we talk about it. Just as we talk about birth a lot. But I'm glad that we always have spoken of death, because someone very close to us died recently, very young, very sudden...and everyone was devastated. Who was the one, who had the most clear and true thing to say about this sudden and premature passing? My three year old.
"She went back to the stars. It's okay to be sad because we will never see her again and that is sad. But if we look at the stars, we can remember her and feel like we are with her again. She is not going to come back. She was so nice we are so sad, but she is dancing in the stars, nothing will make her sad or hurt ever again and someday we will all go back to the stars with her."
That is almost a direct quote. In the middle of a group of sobbing adults this sad, but clear, child spoke the truth. The person who left us was not her parent for sure...but was someone she loved and just completely adored.
OP....a lot of people think that kids in this age group can't be told about death...but I really feel that they are in a unique place developmentally to really make sense out of it and be okay with it. They are so concrete, so rational and so thoughtful at this stage....I really think that the best relief you/his mother could give this child right now, would be to end his confusion about where his father is. His father is gone. He is not going to be able to let go of trying to get to him until he knows that he is gone and not reachable by any means. I promise, the only way forward from this pain is through truth and honest communication. This child will help you all, I can promise that, in his ability to try and find a way forward...his simple questions about "what to do now", etc, will help you all so much with moving one step at a time toward better days.
I'm so sad for this terrible loss your family has suffered. It's the only worst nightmare scenario I have, losing my husband. I swear I can lose anything but one of my kids or my DH. I have no idea how your sister is coping with this...all my blessings and love going to her, what an enormous loss.
Good luck. Remember that children are simpler than we are....a lot of times there is a deeper clarity which comes to them in situations we can't fathom them making sense of. He will be okay...his processing is being held up right now by confusion...let him walk away from confusion, tell him the truth.