It’s hard to comfort a child who’s asking tough questions about death when I haven’t yet arrived at an explanation that’s comforting to me.
I’m not sure when I first became conscious of my own mortality and that of my parents and grandparents – the people I loved most as a child. I do clearly remember a conversation with my father in which he asked, “Do you know what it was like before you were born? No, right? You won’t know what it’s like after you’re dead.”
As harsh as that may sound, it was the most comforting explanation I ever received. Without knowing about that conversation between my father and me, my husband gave an uncannily similar explanation to our oldest daughter when she quizzed him on the topic.
She’s contemplative by nature – a logical thinker who absorbs information, draws conclusions, and asks more questions. It’s fun to talk with her about subjects most second-graders would find boring. But her inquisitiveness – combined with our atheism – makes discussions of a spiritual nature difficult.
Telling her “when you die, you cease to exist in any form – you can’t see or talk or think or move” feels like I’m ripping the veil off Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny all at once. Childhood’s over, kid!
But on the other hand, I don’t want to lie to her on a serious subject. I’ll tell her the truth about sex and drugs and all the times I disobeyed my parents; it’s only fair for me to be honest with her about what I believe.
When my grandmother died, it was my daughter’s first experience with the death of someone she knew personally and loved very much. I explained that Granny’s body had worn out – that her heart couldn’t keep beating, so all of her body parts stopped working. I told her that this is what happens when people get old, and that Granny had lived for a long, long time. I told her that Granny knew how much we all loved her and that we’d never forget her.
As contemplative and inquisitive as she is, our explanations have sufficed for our daughter – so far. The problem, as I see it, is that if she grows dissatisfied with them, we don’t have any other comforting words to offer her. Being nonbelievers, we can’t convince her of something we don’t believe. She can choose to adopt other beliefs that better meet her emotional needs, but neither my husband nor I can encourage that in good conscience any more than a devoutly religious parent could encourage a child to abandon faith.
I wish I could tell her differently. I wish I could believe that I will see my grandmother again – that I will see all of my grandparents, my uncle, my friend Kirsten, even our beloved pets. I wish I could believe that my friends will be reunited with their own families, especially the siblings and children they lost far too soon. I wish I could believe that this world wasn’t all we’ve got.
But wishing won’t make it so. I cannot believe any of that.
What I can do is encourage her to make the most of every day – work hard, play hard, and love the people who are important to her with all her might. To enjoy what she’s got while she’s got it, because it may change – for better or worse – at any moment. To live out the famous quote from Henry David Thoreau (figuratively, if not literally):
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
And so for me – and hopefully for my children as well – the question becomes not “What happens when we die?” but “How do we want to live?”
My grandmother would have been ninety-four this Saturday, yet my grief is still fresh. As many tissues as I went through writing this post, I’m honored to be writing in the company of Catherine, Devra, Lindsay, and Loralee on the topic of explaining death to children. The five of us have different religious/spiritual views, but we’re also friends who respect and admire one another, which makes the exchange of ideas between us both civil and enlightening.
You may agree with one of us. Or none of us. Or all of us, to one degree or another. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this topic, whatever they may be.
