Hidden Life: Conversing With a Child About Death

Kym Farmer

The weight on my heart was as tangible as a stone. I sat next to Laura and watched her turn the egg I had given her over and over in her hand, softly stroking with her other hand the feathers of the little yellow chick nestled in the crumpled front of her dress. We were on the back porch of her grandmother's familiar farmhouse - my Aunt Edna's - while the adults inside murmured at her wake. I had led her outside after I found her bewildered eyes locked on mine in the crush of people inside.

Most of us adults have heard the sentiment expressed that it is so difficult to experience a child dying before we do. It just doesn't seem to be in the natural order of things. And yet it is also difficult for us adults to try to respond effectively to a child when things do occur in the natural order - when an older person dies and a child must experience that loss. We may commiserate with hugs and attention, but we frequently feel at a loss as to how to help the child express her feeling. The child is not likely to have the words (literally) to explain - even to herself - all the feelings that are rolling around at an emotional time such as this. How can we help?

For most of humanity, death is a spiritual experience in one way or another. Regardless of whether or not we have a concept of an afterlife, death itself is steeped in mystery. Not only do we not know with certainty what comes next, but death invites us to reflect, consciously or not, on why we're here at all - what does it mean to experience this time, if we are going to die in the end anyway? In what context does the reality of death have significance? We may not be able to ponder concepts this deep with young children, but if we are going to talk with them at all about death, it's best to recognize from the get-go that we are in a spiritual context.

How, then, do we connect the known with the Unknown? How do we bridge between a reality far more concrete than a child might like and an abstract with which most of us adults grapple? I have found that the clearest examples that leap to mind in such circumstances are those from the natural world. This fact in itself is very telling. We are so profoundly and so intimately connected with the natural world, with its deep mysteries and life lessons, that we instinctually and immediately turn there when looking for ways to express numinous reality. And, as it turns out, the natural world is ready with countless expressions - out-picturings - of the meaningful truths we seek to access. As we continue to interact with the child over the months of the mourning process, we can pull one or another of these ideas out of our pockets as timely treasures when the child's heart needs them most.

In my experience with Laura, I might summarize our ongoing conversations over time as something like this: "I know this has been such a sad time for you, Laura, since your Grandma died. I felt the same way when my own grandmother died. I missed her so much.

"One of the things we used to do often was take walks in the park. There was always so much happening there, and we never ran out of things to do - butterflies to chase, trees to climb, leaves to match, bird feathers to tickle each other with, flowers to smell, drawings to make from shadows, and usually a sunset to watch before we walked home. I used to bring home some of these treasures and keep them in a special box in my room. I would take them out and look at them, and just doing that would remind me so clearly of our time together. I still have that box. I brought it with me today, because I wanted to show you some things in it.

"This leaf came from that big old oak tree in the center of the park. I loved the way the outlines of the veins remained even after the rest of the leaf decayed. It looks like such a fragile delicate thing, and yet it has lasted so long. I picked it up from the ground one fall afternoon. Have you ever seen one like it? Not all of the leaves were off the trees yet, but I knew they were going to be because winter was coming. And every winter, all those trees in the park lose their leaves. They look so lifeless during the winter, don't they? Like there's just not a breath of life left inside them. And yet, every spring, those trees that look like big dead sticks show us that they still have all that new life hiding in them - they send out millions of new leaves!

"This little blue eggshell is from a hatched baby robin. You can see how it almost fits together perfectly. When it's just an eggshell like this, it's hard to imagine that there's all this life going on inside, isn't it? Just like that egg and chick in your lap. Over all those weeks, that baby bird was bringing itself into being, and from the outside, we couldn't tell a thing - it looked as still as a stone.

"Here's a bulb from some purple irises that my Grandma and I planted one day underneath the maple by the birdbath. This looks a lot like that eggshell in a way, doesn't it? Seems like nothing is going on inside, and yet every spring we would go back and see those irises pushing up again, sending out a brand new flower from a bulb that looked like this! One year I pressed one of the flowers in a book and saved it in my box, too. Here's what it looks like. So beautiful, isn't it?

"This is something you've probably seen before. The cocoon on this twig is for a monarch butterfly. The twig broke off and fell to the ground, and the cocoon got stepped on a little bit, but I saved it anyway. You know, a lot of people think that a caterpillar makes a cocoon that it goes into, where it snoozes for a time while it grows wings, then comes out later as a butterfly. But what really happens is even more of a miracle: After the caterpillar builds its cocoon around itself, everything that was the caterpillar dissolves. Then, in some mysterious way, the wisdom still inside that cocoon reorganizes itself and puts itself back together as a butterfly! When it comes out, it's really a whole different creature than the caterpillar, and even more beautiful. Imagine that! Think about what you would be like if you did that - and came out even more beautiful than you are!

"Here are a couple of drawings Gramma and I did together. We traced around shadows on the ground. I thought the shadow looked like a duck, so that's what I made mine into - see? But she thought it looked like a rabbit - so here's what she made it into. The shadows would get longer as the sun went down, and change their shapes. So we would finally stop exploring, and sit down on a bench to watch the sun set. It's really such a splendid sight, even though it means that darkness is coming. Do you ever worry about the dark? But every morning when you get up - there's the sun again.

"Death is kind of like that, too. Everything seems dark for a while - it's almost like the sun has vanished. But it hasn't really, has it - it's just out of our sight for a while. Like the life of the flower that's in the bulb which we can't see; like the life of the bird that's in the egg which we can't see; like the life of the leaves that hide within the tree when it's so bare in winter.

"That life does not go away. But like the caterpillar, the shape it had dissolves - into something even more lovely. This is a strange and marvelous and mysterious thing. But we can look all around us in the rest of God's world and know that this is so. As true as it is for the egg and for the bulb and for the cocoon and for the tree and for the sun - it's true also for your Grandma. She has changed in a way that we can't recognize any more, but she has become something even more beautiful. And even though your Grandma can't speak to you any more in the ways that she used to, I think that she - and all the other beings who have died - speak to us with stories from the egg and the bulb and the cocoon and the sun. It's the same way God speaks.

"I'm going to leave this box with you so that you can begin to collect your own reminders of your Grandma. And maybe you'll come from time to time to show me what you have found that reminds you of how your Grandma was with you, and how she still can be."