The other night just as we were all about to sit down to
dinner (yes, family dinners are in full force these days, and going fairly
well), Alastair and I were absently finishing up a conversation that happened
to include a mention of the fact that so-and-so’s father had died recently,
hence so-and-something-else.
About ten seconds into our meal, Elsa asked: “Who died?”
At least, that’s what we thought she said — which was a
little strange. We didn’t even know that the girls had this verb in their
vocabularies. But we answered, directly, and a little cautiously, “So-and-so’s
father died.”
Then she asked, “But where did he die?”
This was equally strange (maybe they did know what it meant?
They’d talked about it in preschool) but we went with it. “We don’t know.
Probably in his house.”
Clio piped up, “but where did he go?”
Alastair and I looked at each other, thinking: oh boy, here
we go.
Except in the most glossed-over, abstract sense — i.e. animals
chasing after other animals in storybooks with intent to kill — the girls have
never really encountered death. I’ve been hesitant even to kill bugs in front
of them. But it had to come up sooner or later, right?
So we gave the girls the three-year-old appropriate (we
think…) explanation: when people die, it means they aren’t with us any more,
and we can’t talk to them or see them or spend time with them.
“But sometimes they die and then they come back up,” Clio
said.
“Well,” Alastair said, “some people believe that, but Mommy
and I believe that when people die they don’t come back.”
But as he was giving his careful, sensitive explanation of our
secular humanistic belief that dead is dead, it hits me: Clio thought we were
saying dive.
“Clio,” I said, “did you think we were saying dive? Like you dive into the water?”
“Yeah,” she said. “But he dived into his house.”
Ah. Well then. Hrrm ahrem. Never mind then. Moving right
along. More mac and cheese, anyone?
I hate the fact that we’re going to have to be the ones to
break the news to the girls (and I suppose we’ve already started) that all
living things die. Right now they live in a completely death-free world.
Imagine that. Imagine never having experienced the loss of someone (or even
some animal) you loved, and not even knowing that such a loss was possible.
It sounds so strange and detached from reality, but
sometimes I feel like I live in that place, too. I’ve been lucky in my life not
to have suffered a devastating loss. My grandparents are all gone, and I miss
them, but their deaths were expected and timely. I’ve lost a few friends, but
no one I was close with at the time. I’ve watched death from afar, dreading the
inevitable fact that it will come closer to me at some point.
My worst fear, of course — the one my mind recoils from — is
losing a child. (I can’t even make the sentence personal, as you can see.) When
I hear about someone losing their child it almost always makes me well up. I
see the story of the boy
in Washington who disappeared on his way to class (perhaps he’s still alive
somewhere) and something inside me shudders. I hear of the student
at my alma mater who was recently swept to his death by an avalanche in the
Swiss alps, and my whole self winces.
And when I read of the death of Henry Granjau, son of Katie
Allison Granju, who blogs here (Home/Work) and
at her personal blog, MamaPundit, my
heart felt like it had split down the middle.
There’s no reversing what happened to Henry, and yet I still
find myself going back and checking Katie’s blog almost every day. I’ve been
asking myself: why? Because every time I do, my heart aches anew, and I’m terrified
anew at the thought that this could happen to me. Why subject myself to it?
At first I wondered if it was some kind of titillation — a
pornography of death, along the lines of looking at car accidents, wanting to
see if anyone has been killed and finding a strange thrill in it — the thrill,
perhaps, of a sudden, powerful awareness of our own aliveness, and the
aliveness of those around us. Maybe as human beings we need to be shocked into
that kind of gratitude for life every once in awhile. Maybe it’s good for us.
But I think in the case of my inability to look away from Katie
and her family right now, it’s something different. I think I go back and read
again and again because I want to see how a mother copes with such a loss. I want
to know that if it happened to me, I would be able to go on, however gropingly
and brokenly. I want to see that it’s possible to get to a place of peace and even
happiness again.
I hope and pray that Katie and her family get there.
* * *
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Oh, do I know where you’re coming from. I dread having to tell the girls about death, that everything dies. At three, obviously it’s coming. But I try not to even use the words die, or kill, or dead around them so that they don’t get too curious. It’s my own fear and sadness about it that causes it (for me, that’s part of my depressive tendencies, this existential panic). Anyway, I also read a few blogs of parents who have lost children, and I think it comes from the same place. The thought of losing any of mine just takes my breath away, I can’t even go there for more than a second or two. I think I want to see that it can be survived.
I’ve found that kids accept death very matter-of-factly (not of their brothers, of course–in the abstract.) My 7-year-old banged out a condolence card for her grandma on the death of her dog with no problem at all (Dear Grandma: I no you miss Sully. Love Claire.) That kind of thing can take me hours.
Of course, there’s natural death (old dog) and unnatural death (Henry).
Human nature – I don’t know what it is. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, the need to follow Katie’s blog and empathize.
It does take a parent’s breath away to imagine losing a child (yes, too hard to personalize that sentence). And I think that as parents we have a special ability to empathize with each other. My continued prayers are with Katie and the family. I suspect that the birth of Baby Girl is going to be a particularly bittersweet and challenging experience for them.
Jane- I’m doing the very same thing. My heart breaks for her family and my mind gets all twisted up thinking about what I would do in her shoes. I guess all we can do is count our blessings each and every day and, as Katie did, tell our kids how much we love them as much as possible.
Yes, yes, yes….I have been going back again and again to check for updates from Katie….I am so utterly torn apart by this and did not even totally understand why until I read this post, Jane. My daughter will be two in a few weeks and I literally can not think of losing her. I look at the resurgence of Natalee Holloway pictures on the news and I think that her mother–like Katie–must be superhuman. How else does one bear such a loss?
This whole post made me cry a little. It was nicely written. I’m praying often for Katie and her family. I love the idea of a life for a little while even, where no loss is permanent, and no one has died. I hope your girls can experience that place for awhile. It is a wonderful thing.
Yay for family dinners!
Recently my old cat, who used to live at our house back when LP little, but was now living with my dad and stepmom, died. LP knew and loved her. So I didn’t know how to break the news to him, I wanted to be age-appropriate, gentle, etc. So I started…”You know, she’s gone away, etc…” And he looked at me like don’t try to fool me, and said “Mom, she’s DEAD.”
… I didn’t say anything else, or ask any more questions. We quickly switched topics. I have no idea what he meant, or if he really understood (probably not), or had just heard that somewhere… I’m also dreading the big explanation somehow, but think you’ve handled it really well (I may copy you guys when the time comes).
I’ve been feeling exactly the same way about Katie, and think of her (them) all the time.
I spent ages trying to something appropriate in the comments of Katie’s blog, but found myself giving up because it was too hard not to make it about my own fear. Like you Jane I have never experienced the death of somebody close (other than a dog , I cried for 3 weeks- it wasn’t even our dog). I’ve never attended a funeral, I don’t think I physically could. The suffocating sadness I feel when I think of such a loss is something I try to avoid, rationally I know it is almost like grieving in advance and a waste of emotion/time/energy. That’s me. I’ll be a puddle.
As for the kids, I have thought often of what a cruel thing tthe traditional “fairytales’ serve the very useful purpose of introducing to young children the notions of good, evil, jealousy, death and that is not a bad thing.
oops, that last sentence should read ..” Thought often of what a cruel thing it is to discover the notion of death without some preparation.I think the traditional fairytales…..”
I have always been a sap for kids and death, but even more since since having my own kids. I have panic attacks just watching shows where a kid gets kidnapped or something. I cannot deal anymore with thoughts of something happening to my babies. I know I could not go on.
Eric sometimes will say “You want to kill me!” when we are getting onto him about something. I might have said that in front of him to Daddy or something. It sounds awful coming from a toddler who is in a state of upsetness. If he ever says it in front of someone we might get CPS called on us. Does he even know what it means? Probably not.
I think being frank and honest with kids about death is the way to go. I have had friends who were very blase about the family pets dying and I think it does damage to the kids long term. If they think “Oh well the gerbil died, we can just get another one.” Are they going to say “Oh well Grandmother died, we can just get another one” at her funeral? I think that is the wrong way to approach it.
I have always felt all God’s creatures are wonderful and valuable and there is a sadness when any of them die. Except the unpopular bugs. No one cares about them. I guess this is why I am a vegetarian.
I’ve been checking Katie’s blog almost daily, too.
With Michael, we started the death concept with bugs. We look at bugs, worms and wild life a lot and when we see a dead one I don’t hide it, I just comment that it’s dead. I think maybe this is the first stage, looking at something dead and seeing the absence of movement. I’ve decided that it’s a fact of life, death, dying, animals eating each other and I would be giving it even more power by hiding it. I don’t force it on him, and it hasn’t been traumatic for him at this point. If it was, I’d change my strategy, maybe. I guess you don’t have that option with twins! When the time comes that he asks me to elaborate, I’ll just give him the truth as I see it.
g’g'mama passed away around christmas so we had the talk with marlie. we told her that when people get really old and/or sick they pass away. she seems to accept this answer, but was definitely obsessed with it for a while. “tell me again where g’g'mama is.” and during last night’s bedtime story, there was a drawing of a fairy family putting their little daughter fairy to bed. the dad was sort of androgenous so i took the opportunity to say that maybe this was a family with two mommies (“and that’s alright by me”) because all families are different. and out of nowhere, marlie said, “maybe the daddy died.” What??!! so i continued with my “everybody is diff-er-ent” lesson and skipped over it, but – i see where you’re coming from…
Hey Cousin,
Hopefully you can put off the conversation of death with Elsa and Clio a few more years, at least.
I remember when Grandma Randall died–I was 4. And mom just held me in her arms and told me about Heaven and how happy Grandma Randall was now, how she was out of pain and, if I was a good girl, I would see her again someday. (Another ploy at getting me to behave, but, hey, I think it worked for a whole hour…)
Jane, I know that terror exactly — that somehow, in some terrible way my great fortune will be ripped from me and I will be left as nothing. I honestly have no idea how I would survive.
I hide it away because I have to. I let my darling little boy explore, fall off of chairs, swing on swings, slide down slides, try the stairs on his own, because I can’t keep him wholly protected even if I try my best.
But death, as an abstract concept, isn’t such a bad thing. It’s part of the natural world, and it’s the other half of birth. I haven’t hidden the idea of death and dying from my son, though he has had some moments of concern. His grandmother died a few months before he was born, but we’ve always shown him photographs and told him that she was in heaven, riding her horses; and we recently lost my aunt and brought him along to the funeral and family gathering. We live too far away to pass up a visit, no matter what the reason. My son really likes the idea of reincarnation, and I find it appealing as well. Why bother making such a great planet, really, if you’re only going to let people live there for such a short time?
When I was three, the family dog died. At 7, my grandmother died of cancer, and at about 8, my first pony passed away. My uncle died. We had scads of kittens around from a stray mama cat, and once my dad had to drown one that was too sick to survive and had been abandoned. Death happened. We were never happy about it, but I always felt that it gave me more perspective than other kids had who’d never had death explained.
Anyway, that’s my thought.
When my son was two, he lost his grandfather. He only has one grandparent left. We’ve discussed death with him for quite some time now.
When he was four, he lost his favorite dog (we have two). She was my first dog and she was 16 at the time. We had to make the choice to put her down and on the morning of, I was in the yard with her, crying. My son was out there too as I was getting ready to take him to a babysitter while I took Toots to the vet. I said to my son, “This is the last time we will see Toots in the yard, honey. We will only see her in our hearts. It’s time to say goodbye.” He looked at her, patted her head lovingly and said, “Goodbye Tootie, you’re going to die today….” I just about pee’d my pants! Thank goodness for kids. He brought a smile to my face when I was pretty devastated at having to have made the choice to put the dog down…..
We had her cremated and picked up the “cremains” a couple of weeks later. We placed them on the mantle for a while and my son would point out “our dog, Toots” to anyone that came over! They’d look at the box and then look at us….