[blparent] Talking about Death with a Preschooler

[Jo Elizabeth Pinto]

Hi.  I'm wondering if any of you have had to help your kids deal with the death of someone they knew well.  A member of our church died suddenly yesterday.  As many of you know, my family hasn't really been there for Sarah, so this man was a grandfather figure for her.  She called him Mr. Jim.  We saw him every week, he came to all four of her birthday parties, his two granddaughters were like fun older cousins.  She often went and sat on his lap during church services just because she liked to hang out with him.  There's a man in his eighties at our church who has been very sick, and I sort of had it in my mind that he would be the one I would have to explain to Sarah.  But Mr. Jim was only seventy-seven and in good health, as far as he or anybody knew.  He went to bed feeling achy Sunday morning, like he had the flu coming on, and his son found him at five o'clock that evening.  It just reminds us grown-ups how fragile life is, and how we never know when the end will come.

I talked to Sarah's pediatrician, since we were in for another ear infection this afternoon.  She said to be very concrete and to the point about death.  Mr. Jim was old, and his body didn't work anymore, so he won't be coming back.  It seems so cold and heartless, but like the doctor said, kids don't understand all the nice ways we use to soften reality.  Don't say he got sick because then the child will be scared that if she gets sick, or a parent does, death might come.  Don't say he went away, because then the child will worry when the parents go away, thinking they might not come back.

I already made the mistake when a friend's dog died of saying he went to be with God, and Sarah decided that since we have church in a local hotel, that God must live there.  So I said no, he lives way far up in the sky, and she decided we had to take the elevator.  For several weeks, she would go and push the elevator buttons at the hotel and watch to see if God and the dog came out.  Strike one for my explanations.

At first I was thinking I wouldn't say anything to Sarah till we didn't see Mr. Jim in church next week, but if she gets upset then, it will be hard on the granddaughters, who are probably going to be there.  I'm thinking maybe Sarah shouldn't go to a memorial service, which there will be, although we don't know any of the details yet about what the family wants.  My sister took her kids to the services when my grandma died two years ago, and even to the cemetery for the burial, and I thought four was awfully young to be exposing my niece to all of that.  I tend to be called stoic when it comes to these things, so I'm not worried about getting overemotional myself, but I was thinking it might upset Sarah if she sees a lot of people she cares about sad and crying.  But if I don't take her to the memorial, then is there some other way to let her express her feelings?  I'm just wondering if any of you have dealt with this yet, and if so, what reactions you got.  Sometimes I'm not sure if I'm on the right track, or off in left field somewhere.

Jo Elizabeth

"How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong.  Because someday in life you will have been all of these."--George Washington Carver, 1864-1943, American scientist