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At four, my daughter's had her share of the death talk. When she was at her old school, two of her teachers lost a loved one -- one a father and one a husband -- unexpectedly. Their grief was palpable, and we all had to talk to our kids about it when they were around two. Last year my husband lost his grandmother and we lost our cat, Sybil, who was 18 years old.
Of all these deaths, my daughter focused the most on Sybil. While she felt bad for her teachers and her father, she didn't really know these other people all that well. Sybil -- well, she knew Sybil. Sybil lived with us. Sybil had been around every day of my daughter's life. She had a relationship with Sybil. Then suddenly Sybil was gone.
I took Sybil to the emergency vet at midnight one night, and the vet told me she only had 30% of one kidney functioning, that she would die within the week, that she was pretty much drunk all the time on weird pH balances or something like that. I chose to put her down right then, terrified we'd come home to find her dead and my daughter would see both that and my extreme reaction. Sybil was my baby, one of my best friends. I loved that cat like she was a child of mine, and when I held her last before they took her away, my legs shook so violently she almost fell off my lap. I was really glad there was no one there to see me, because grief is not pretty, and to be that upset over a cat seemed a little strange, even to me.
We're religious people, so I explained Sybil's death in the context of heaven. That's how it was explained to me, and I found it comforting, especially as a child. Even though Sybil died last June and we've had her successor, Bella, for over a year, my daughter still brings up Sybil at odd times. Every time we drive past a cemetary, she points out that the people there are dead. She talks about Sybil and her great-grandmother being dead. She asks what people do in heaven, if Jesus lives there, and how can he live there and in all the trees and the world and our hearts at the same time? And then my brain leaks out my ear, because I don't know how to explain spirituality to a four-year-old in an age-appropriate way. So I tell her Jesus is magic, which I'm sure is an answer that would make my pastor vomit, but at four she accepts magic as a valid answer to just about anything. I'll let her take theology in college.
But ... what about people who don't believe in heaven? What do they tell their kids? I've honestly never thought about this before I took on this post -- weird, I know. If I couldn't talk about heaven, I think I'd change the subject, which appears to be Marlynn's reaction, too.
... we don't conform to any religion so those convenient "heaven" answers don't fly in our house, but I also don't want to leave him with more questions. So I try to focus on the now, and talk about how there are so many things we can do today, to teach him how to live a life without regret, to live so that at the end of each day he can be proud of who he is at that exact moment and all he has done up until then. But those aren't answers. Those are delays. Why do we die? I don't know.
Shari at Two Times the Fun asked why Disney = Death, especially Death of the Mother Figure. Her commenter Missy had an interesting observation:
Although it is an unpleasant topic, I think it is an important one. It is probably easier to help them work out understanding what this death thing is all about over a Disney movie, than opposed to having to explain it after the death of a family member or friend while at the same time trying to deal with your own grief.
Maybe. Maybe it's good to kick-off the death talk with Bambi's mother getting blown away, or maybe the death talk isn't as big of a deal for a small child as it is for the adult doing the talking.
Jess at DC Metro Moms recently lost her husband's
