Explaining death to a child

Yeah, it’s a weird seeming paradox if you’re a fan of evolutionary psychology, as I am. Losing a child does seem like the most horrifying loss possible, yet until very recently it was incredibly common. (My dad’s older brother, so my uncle I guess, died from polio not long before the vaccine was invented; my great-aunt, who is second-from-left in the family photo at my Twitter profile and who looks strikingly like me, died not long after that photo was taken.) So shouldn’t we have some built-in psychological protection against the extreme emotional pain it causes? If this falls more in the “nurture” than “nature” category, was it easier (or, I should say, less extremely painful) for parents to lose young children in the “old days” (or more recently in the less developed world)?

BTW, 108th birthday: wow! I wonder how that ranks in the centenarian population–like, what fraction of a percent make it that long?

I think we do, we just don’t like it. We might think we’ll die from the heartbreak, but mostly people continue on.

The alternate, being less hurt by the death of a loved one, would probably be less evolutionarily successful.

My son is 2, so I haven’t had to do this yet. I’m tearing up just thinking about it. I appreciate the thoughts of those who’ve shared, and I’m sorry for your losses.

Boring the kid will work too.

I remember when I was around the age of five or six, I used to visualize what a coloring book of my life would look like. Various stark black and white images of myself in school or playing at home drifted through my mind.

Then I wondered what the last page would look like. I saw a cutaway display of ground and casket, with me lying inside it with my eyes closed. I remember that image in my head so well, I can still remember my corpse wearing the little dress with the tiny little treehouses printed on it. It was my favorite dress at the time.

Not sure how I found out about death, but I was well aware of it by then. That last page in that imaginary coloring book is the only image I can remember from it.

It may have been the Jehovah’s Witnesses around me with their endless Armageddon prattle that I absorbed. Strange, the image didn’t disturb me. I actually enjoyed thinking about it.

Here’s a podcast done by a Maine Wildlife Warden chaplain about trusting people, including children, to grieve. There is a tiny amount of religious content, but it isn’t a religious talk. You might find it helpful.

StG

When my Dad died, about a month before I turned seven, I was summoned to my folks best friend’s house, into a bedroom where my mom was sufficiently prostrated. She informed me that daddy had gone to see Jesus. I will swear on my dying bed that I almost said, but six year old wisdom made me hold my tongue, when is he coming back?. She didn’t let me come to the funeral. That’s all I ever got from her about that.

Wow.

The cynic in me says that’s why most religions believe the deceased “is in a better place” or for the Buddhists, you recycle a few (or many) times until you’ve learned what you can on this plane, then move onto a better place. It’s one of the drawbacks of intelligence, awareness of our own or others’ eventual death. There are are other creatures that seem to mourn death – apes and elephants spring to mind – but even they live in the now.

Kate Braestrup is a great storyteller. Here’s another story she told at The Moth, about giving blessings at a difficult murder scene: The Blessing.