CHAPTER 7 
Death and Life
Of the hundreds of questions about nonreligious parenting I’ve fielded from reporters and audiences, one stands head and shoulders above the rest for its ability to amaze, amuse, and confound me: “Without heaven, how will you make your kids okay with death?”
I can’t get used to it no matter how often I hear it. No fewer than three myths are embedded in those eleven words—three common misunderstandings that must be unpacked before we can get a handle on this topic. Let’s look at those three myths, as well as the two obligations that nonreligious parents have to their children regarding the subject of death.
Three Myths, Two Obligations
Myth 1: Religion Cures the Fear of Death
Given the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I’m baffled whenever I hear it implied that religion cures the fear of death. I know many deeply religious people, all of whom work hard at delaying their demise. They look carefully before crossing the street. They watch what they eat, follow doctor’s orders, shrink in terror when given a troubling diagnosis, pray for the recovery of seriously ill friends, and weep as uncontrollably as the rest of us when someone close to them dies. They are every bit as dissatisfied with company policy as I am.
If not more so. I also know some who worry themselves to distraction over whether they’ve satisfied the requirements for entrance to Paradise. One woman I know lost sleep for weeks after her husband died, convinced that he had gone to hell for missing too many Masses.
“If we are immortal, it is a fact of nature, and that fact does not depend on bibles, on Christs, priests or creeds. It cannot be destroyed by un-belief.”
—Robert Green Ingersoll, orator, “The Great Agnostic”
Some comfort.
When it comes to comforting children in the face of loss, most mainstream parenting experts find the invocation of heaven problematic at best. In Guiding Your Child Through Grief, James and Mary Ann Emswiler caution against such wincers as “God took Mommy because she was so good,” or “God took Daddy because He wanted him to be with Him,” for reasons that should be obvious. “Don’t use God or religion as a pacifier to make grieving children feel better. It probably won’t work,” they continue.“Do not explain death as a punishment or a reward from God.”1 By the time they and most other child development experts are done, the single greatest supposed advantage of religion lies in tatters.
We’ve now set the bar more reasonably. Our goal as parents is not to somehow cure the fear of death, but to keep that natural and unavoidable fear from interfering overly much with the experience of life.
Myth 2: Children Are Less Able Than Adults to Think About Death
We grownups flatter ourselves by suggesting that we are in a position to comfort our children when it comes to thinking about and dealing with death. If anything, the opposite is true. Compared to their parents, children have a greatly reduced grasp of death. As Emory University psychologist Melvin Konner notes in his brilliant classic The Tangled Wing, “From age 3 to 5 they consider it reversible, resembling a journey or sleep. After 6 they view it as a fact of life but a very remote one.”2 Although rates of conceptual development vary, Konner places the first true grasp of the finality and universality of death around age 10—a realization that includes the first dawning deep awareness that it applies to them as well.
Critics of approaching the topic of death straightforwardly with children assume that nonreligious parents are telling their children, in essence, “deal with it.” This is a willfully ignorant critique. Nonreligious parents are every bit as concerned for the comfort and happiness of their children as religious parents. They simply recognize that an early, naturalistic engagement with the topic makes it easier to come to terms this most difficult of human realities, not harder.
The fact that children tend not to fully “get” death during the early years has its downside—crossing the street would be easier, for example, if they did—but it also has a decided advantage. These are the years during which they can engage the idea of death more easily and more dispassionately than they will as adults. And such early engagement can only help to build a foundation of understanding and familiarity to ease and inform their later encounters with this most profound of all human realities.
Myth 3: We Can, Even Should, Be Comfortable with the Idea of Death
Fear of death is among our healthiest and most desirable fears. Natural selection put it there, after all, and for good reason. Imagine two early ancestors crossing the savannah. One has a genetically endowed fear of death, while the other is indifferent to it. A predator sprints their way. All other things being equal, which of these guys will survive to pass on his attitude toward death?
The desire to live is also a helpful social regulator. It has been noted by several commentators that only by using the promise of a glorious afterlife to suppress the simple and natural fear of death were the attacks of September 11 made possible.3 Membership in the ranks of those who stand fearless in the face of death is not something we should wish for our children.
So perhaps we can agree that curing our children of the fear of death is off the table. But then what are our obligations to our children regarding mortality? I would suggest two: to provide reasonable comfort and to encourage thoughtful engagement.
Obligation 1: To Provide Comfort
Although we can’t cure our kids of the fear of death, it’s important to keep that fear from overwhelming them.
Even when it does not involve death, loss is a difficult issue for kids, especially in their first few years. Peek-a-boo is riveting for infants precisely because the parent vanishes and then returns—a kind of mini-resurrection worthy of a squeal of delight. A toy that rolls under the crib gives rise to a keening wail worthy of an Irish widow. Only after a good deal of experience and development does the child begin to learn that things that go away continue to exist out of sight—and generally return.
It’s hardly surprising that the child’s first confrontation with death is such a cruel blow. After that long, hard climb out of her early misconceptions about loss, she suddenly learns that Mr. Skittles the hamster is gone and not coming back. Little wonder that we create safe and happy places in our imaginations for our loved and lost ones to continue running on the exercise wheel.
Fortunately, there are genuinely comforting ways to help children accept the finality of death—both of others and of themselves—without the need for afterlife fantasies. This chapter will offer several ways to provide that honest comfort, as well as additional resources for further exploration.
The Buddha and the Mustard Seed
When I lost a baby in an ectopic pregnancy, it was a sad and scary time for my 5-year-old. Just a couple of weeks earlier, we had been happily making up songs about the new baby we would be welcoming into our family. But then her mommy spent three days in the hospital for surgery. When I came home, I had to tell my daughter that our baby was not going to be born, and I was too sore to take her on my lap and comfort her.
We could still snuggle, though, and a few days later, as we cuddled on the sofa, I impulsively asked her, “Have I ever told you the story of Buddha and the mustard seed?”
When she shook her head, I told her, “Once there was a great teacher called Buddha. Some people thought he could do magic. One morning, a mother came to him carrying the body of her dead child. She said, “I’ve heard that you can do miracles. Will you bring my child back to life? My heart is broken without him.”
He answered, “If you can bring me a mustard seed from a house where no one has died, bring it back to me at the end of the day, and I will use it to revive your child.”
Then I said to my daughter, “We can act out the story of what happened then. Knock on the wall, and I’ll pretend to open the door, and you be the mother asking me for the mustard seed.”
She knocked. With a door-opening gesture, I said, “Yes?” She explained, “If I can bring the Buddha a mustard seed from a house where no one has died, he will use it to bring my baby back to life.” I answered, “I’m sorry. I wish I could help you, but my grandfather died just last week. He was very old and it was time, but we miss him anyway.”
I said, “Now let’s try another house.” This time, the story I told was that, just a month before, my husband had been run over by an ox cart, and my family didn’t know what we would do. I told her that the two women talked for a while, comforting each other.
We imagined a few more visits. At one, the man who answered the door commented, “You’ve been walking a long time. You look tired and thirsty. Would you like to come to rest and have a drink of water?”
Eventually, I ended the story, “At the end of the day, the woman went back to Buddha and said, ‘Now I understand,’ and he helped her bury her baby.”
Each day for the next few days, we reenacted the story, sometimes making up different incidents in the lives of the people we visited. Then one day, my daughter said, “You be the mommy, and knock at my door.”
So I did, and when I told her my story, she answered, “I can’t give you a mustard seed, because we were going to have a baby, but the baby died. But my mommy and daddy are going to try and have another baby, maybe you could, too.”
“That’s a good idea,” I said. “Thank you for telling me that.” And we hugged.
As it turned out, I never did have another baby. But my daughter had learned valuable lessons about creating meaning from painful experiences. She learned that we are not alone with our problems, and there is comfort in knowing that. She learned how people in pain and need can comfort each other by giving each other compassion and support. She built a network of friends who were like brothers and sisters. Some of them even call me “Ma.” That’s a lot of emotional nourishment from one little mustard seed!
—Molleen Matsumura
Obligation 2: To Help Our Children Engage a Most Profound Concept
Someone once said that the single most significant and profound thing about our existence is that it ends, rivaled only by the fact that it begins.4 One of my objections to the idea of an afterlife is that it deflects our attention from the deep and honest consideration of mortality by pretending that, what do you know, we aren’t really mortal after all.
Nonreligious parents are in a unique position to help their children begin a lifetime of powerful reflection on death and life, dipping their minds into the deepest and richest streams of thought. It’s not always easy to be mortal, but do we really want to limit our children’s experience of the world to those things that are “always easy”? Haven’t we discovered by now that the most meaningful engagement in life includes challenges?
I wax rhetorical.
“We pause to ask ourselves the questions that human beings have always asked, questions that help to define what a human being is: “Why am I here?” “What is death?” “How should I be living now?” These are not morbid reflections; they throw life into perspective. If we had a thousand years to live, such questions would lack urgency. It is death, ironically, that prompts us to learn how to live.”
—Eknath Easwaran, Hindu author and professor of English Literature
Michel de Montaigne, my favorite philosopher, said that “to philosophize is to learn how to die.” And Montaigne wasn’t the only one to put the contemplation of death at the center of our intellectual universe. As parents, one of the greatest gifts we can give our children is a healthy start on the honest engagement with the biggest idea they will ever confront. The choice, after all, isn’t between helping them confront death and helping them avoid it. They will encounter it. And just as with sexuality, alcohol, religion, drugs, and all sorts of other things they will eventually encounter, the worst thing we can do is strive to keep them as ignorant as possible of the subject. The longer they are kept from thinking about these things, the more dysfunctionally they will confront them once they finally do. That doesn’t remotely imply a “deal-with-it” approach to death. On the contrary: Talking openly, honestly, and compassionately about mortality is the best way to protect our children from being painfully blindsided by it later in life.
Parenting Beyond Belief laid the foundation for a healthy consideration of death and the way it frames and makes precious our life. In this chapter we hope to translate that philosophy into practical, concrete ideas for approaching and embracing the stunning fact that one day we will cease to be—and the equally stunning fact that we first have the opportunity to be.
Questions and Answers
Q: How can a nonreligious person comfort a child who has experienced a devastating loss?
A: Nonreligious parents who suffered the loss of a close relative when they were young often tell of the well-meaning but very unhelpful things that were said to them: “I know your mother is in heaven with God.” “Jesus took her because she was so good.” (“Now be a good girl and eat your peas.”)
It’s hard to find a mainstream expert on grief who considers religious consolations useful or even advisable when comforting a bereaved child. After offering many of the suggestions listed below, such experts will typically include an apologetic coda—something like, “Depending on your family’s religious tradition, you may wish to explain a person’s death to your children in terms of God’s will or an afterlife. But be aware that such statements as ‘she went to be with Jesus’ can lead to feelings of confusion and abandonment, while ‘God took her to be with him’ can cause feelings of anger followed by guilt and fear.”5 Worst of all is any suggestion that the child should not be sad (“You should be happy! She’s with Jesus now”), which discounts and invalidates the child’s natural grief.
“Death is a fact of life. As rational adults we all know this. As anxious parents, however, we also want to deny it and to protect our children from the painful reality, especially when someone close to them is dying or dies. But as we have learned from the mishandling of subjects like sexuality with children, ignorance and avoidance of a mysterious, frightening or emotionally charged issue can breed needless fears and anxieties, inappropriate behavior and persistent psychological trauma.”
—Jane Brody, Personal Health column, New York Times, August 12, 1987
That’s what not to say and do. So what do grief specialists across the board recommend?
• Be honest. Don’t pretend that anything less than the worst event of her life has happened. Validate her pain and grief. Tell the child it is not just “okay” to be sad: It’s good. Her sadness honors her mother, showing that she loved her very much, and expresses real feelings instead of keeping them locked inside.
• Share emotions. Keeping a stiff upper lip in front of the children is of no help whatsoever for a grieving child. Let her know that you are grieving too—or better yet, show it.
• Be patient. There is no healthy or effective way to rush a grief process. The suggestion that “it’s time to move on” should come only from the griever, not from the outside.
• Listen. Invite the child to share what she is feeling if she wants to. If not, respect her silence. Listen without judgment.
• Reassure. You can’t bring back the deceased parent, nor can you pretend he or she is somewhere else. But you can and should do everything possible to make the child feel personally safe, loved, and cared for.
• Speak openly. The absence of the parent is the single most painful element of the loss. Avoiding the parent’s name or discussion of the person can often make that sense of absence more painful and more acute. Share memories of the person and use her name or “your mom.” If tears result, remember: the goal is not to avoid sadness, but to help the child work through the intense grief. Let her be the one to tell you if a conversation is too painful.
Outstanding resource: Trozzi, Maria. Talking with Children About Loss (New York: Perigee Trade, 1999).
Q: What about the reverse? A friend of mine who is a nonreligious parent recently lost her daughter to leukemia. I cannot even imagine the pain she’s feeling. All I want to do is take that pain away. Is that even possible without the promise of heaven?
A: No, it isn’t possible without heaven—nor is it possible with it. Even religious parents who have lost a child still suffer an immense and consuming blow. Some even describe feeling guilt on top of the grief as they are reminded, repeatedly, that all is well in heaven and feel no better for it.
I agree that the loss of a child must surely be the most incomprehensible pain possible. One of the best things you can do is acknowledge that. Never say, “I know how you feel.” You don’t. Better by far to phrase it just as you have: “I cannot even imagine the pain you’re feeling.”
Although you can’t remove the pain, there are ways to help your friend through the pain of the grief process:
• Be there. Your presence can’t fill the void left by the lost child, but bereaved parents often describe that void becoming overwhelming when the parent is alone. Offer a hug, conversation, and the simple expression “I am so sorry.” Listen. Avoid all judgments.
• Relieve everyday burdens. Don’t wait to be asked. Take over bill payments, household chores, running the other children to school or sports, running errands—so long as such help does not leave the parent alone and isolated.
• Pay special attention to surviving siblings, many of whom will suppress their own grief to avoid burdening the parents. Talk to them and acknowledge their own loss.
• Talk about the child. As in the case of a parent’s death, avoiding the mention of the deceased can make the absence more intense.
• Stay in touch. Things will never be the same for a bereaved parent. Don’t assume that a return to work or the passage of a set amount of time represents the end of a need for support.6
Outstanding organization for bereaved parents: The Compassionate Friends (www.compassionatefriends.org), with more than 600 chapters in the United States and United Kingdom. “Espouse[s] no specific religious or philosophical ideology.”
Q: I have heard of the Day of the Dead celebration from Mexico. What is it? Would it be a good way for secular parents to help our children think about death?
A: The Day of the Dead (celebrated November 1–2) is a fascinating example of the syncretism found in many cultures with colonization in their past. The practices and beliefs of the invading culture (in this case Catholic Spain) are melded with local practices and beliefs (in this case the ancient Aztec festival of Mictecacihuatl, queen of the underworld and guardian of the dead) to produce new traditions.7
Like the Celtic festival of Samhain,8 the Day of the Dead recognizes the moment when summer turns to winter as a time when the worlds of the living and the dead are in close proximity. People build altars to draw visits from their beloved dead, filling them with flowers and the loved ones’ favorite foods.
Visits are made to cemeteries to communicate with the dead. Towns hold macabre processions of people dressed as skeletons or as deceased relatives, rattling beads and shells to wake the dead.
Many U.S. communities now hold Day of the Dead celebrations, especially those with large Mexican expatriate populations. Although the Virgin Mary is now woven into the celebration in place of Mictecacihuatl, there are many elements of the holiday that secular families can adopt, enjoy, and use to reflect on death and the preciousness it lends to life.
(See Chapter 6, “Celebrating Life,” for more on the Day of the Dead.)
Q: My son is in preschool and hears all of the time from his friends that their dead grandparents go to heaven after they die and that they will see them when they die. My son has now decided that that is the truth. How can I get him away from this position? Or should I?
A: Don’t think of a preschool dalliance with belief as “deciding the truth.”You should expect your child to try on different religious hats along the way, declaring this or that belief, then switching a week later. It is part of a very healthy process of making up his own mind about religious questions. Simply:
• Let him know what you believe and why.
• Encourage him to question his own beliefs and the beliefs of others, including yours.
• Engage in broad-based comparative religious education as described in Chapter 3.
• Let him know that he can change his mind a thousand times and (most important) that the final decision is entirely his—and mean it.
“Every now and then I think about my own death and I think about my own funeral. And then I ask myself, “What is it that I would want said?” If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long …. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize, which isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards, that’s not important…. I’d like somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. I’d like for somebody to say that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody. I want you to be able to say that day, that I did try to feed the hungry…. I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity. Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice; say that I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won’t have any money to leave behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind.”
—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from an address at Ebenezer Baptist Church, February 4, 1968
Q: Should my children (ages 6, 8, and 10) attend the funeral of their grandmother?
A: Although this depends largely on the emotional makeup of each child, I strongly recommend allowing any child who wishes to attend to do so. In addition to the emotional benefits of closure, the children will have an opportunity to observe a family and community in the process of grieving and saying goodbye and to be a part of that process. They will hear their grandmother being eulogized and remembered by those who loved her, and they will have an opportunity to begin a lifelong contemplation of the deepest questions surrounding life and death.
Ideally, you will have prepared them for years by talking about death in naturalistic and unforced ways as described throughout this chapter, from the dead bird in the backyard to walks in cemeteries. Given this preparation, the funeral of a loved one is a natural and good step forward in the process of pondering the imponderable.
Q: A friend of our family died recently, and now my daughter is really worried that her dad or I will die. She keeps asking me what will happen to her if we die. How do I answer her in a way that is realistic but also reassuring?
A: The fear that his or her parents will die very often precedes and overshadows any fears a child has about his or her own mortality. Among other things, there is a sense that the older generation stands between us and death—that you are shielded from it so long as your parents are still around.9
Let your child know of the many ways in which you take care of yourself and each other. No need to pretend that this is certain protection. In fact, your question implies that she has already begun to consider the aftereffects of such an event. Take the time to consider and plan for this eventuality yourself, designating a guardian or guardians, and letting your child know that even this unlikely possibility has been thought through, and that she would be safe and cared for.
Q: We need to decide who will care for our child if something should happen to us but are having some difficulty making the decision. Our siblings and parents are all very religious, have parenting views very different from our own, and live in other states. What can we do about this decision?
A: This is a difficult but important decision, one that all parents must take the time to make.
One of the best ways to proceed is to consider the hypothetical situation as concretely as possible. Your children have lost both parents, presumably without warning, throwing their world into a tailspin. Everything will have changed for them. The two most important considerations in this case are security and continuity. In other words, you want your children to end up in the care of someone who will keep them safe (physically and emotionally) and provide the least jarring transition.
No doubt about it: We were on a Seussian bender. For three weeks, every bedtime story had been from the gruffulous world of Dr. Seuss. Then one night, in the middle of Oh, The Places You’ll Go! we ran smack into mortality.
ERIN (9): Is he still alive?
DAD: Who?
ERIN: Dr. Seuss.
DAD: Oh. No, he died about fifteen years ago, I think. But he had a good long life first.
I suddenly became aware that Delaney (6) was very quietly sobbing.
DAD : Oh, sweetie, what’s the matter?
DELANEY: Is anybody taking his place?
DAD : What do you mean, punkin?
DELANEY: Is anybody taking Dr. Seuss’s place to write his books? (Begins a deep cry.) Because I love them so much, I don’t want him to be all-done!
I hugged her tightly and started giving every lame comfort I could muster—everything short of “I’m sure he’s in Heaven writing Revenge of the Lorax.”
I scanned the list of Seuss books on the back cover. “Hey, you know what?” I offered lamely. “We haven’t even read half of his books yet!”
“But we will read them all!” she shot back. “And then there won’t be any more!” I had only moved the target, which didn’t solve the problem in the least.
Laney wants to be a writer. I seized on this, telling her she could be the next Dr. Seuss. She liked that idea, and we finished the book. The next day she was at work on a story called “What Do I Sound Like?” about a girl who didn’t know her own voice because she had never spoken.
My instinct whenever one of my kids cries—especially that deep, sincere, wounded cry—is to get her happy again. This once entailed nothing more than putting something on my head—anything would do—at which point laughter would replace tears. It’s a bit harder once they’re older and, instead of skinned knees, they are saddened by the limitations imposed by mortality on the people they love.
But is “getting them happy again” the right goal?
Death is immensely sad, even as it makes life more precious. It’s supposed to be. So I shouldn’t be too quick to put something on my head or dream up a consolation every time my kids encounter the sadness of mortality. Let them think about what it means that Dr. Seuss is all-done, and even cry that deep, sincere, heartbreaking cry.
Religious expressions vary considerably, so you would need to consider where in the spectrum your family members fall. Moving children from a freethought home to a conservative religious home, even with well-meaning guardians, can be quite unsettling to the children at precisely the moment they need stability. If, on the other hand, a home is of a progressive religious orientation, it’s entirely possible that a stable transition could be negotiated. Many liberal religionists would be perfectly willing to raise your children in an open questioning environment. Ask the person you are considering how he or she would handle questions about religion, about authority, and about the boundaries of inquiry.
Child welfare advocates also recommend minimizing other disruptions as much as possible, such as moving to another city or state or changing schools.
If you have family friends who you know well, whose parenting style and beliefs are a better fit with yours, who live locally, and are willing to take on the responsibility, such considerations can and should trump family relationships. That’s a lot of ifs, but they’re worth weighing. And once you’ve decided on the best situation for your kids (and confirmed it with the person you’ve chosen), put it in writing. Consult a legal professional for advice on creating a binding document.
Q: My husband and I disagree about the importance of making advance plans for our own funerals. He wants us to write out detailed plans, but I just don’t care. I’ll be gone! Bury me, burn me, shoot me into space, whatever turns you on! Am I missing something?
A: Well, yes. You are making the false assumption that funerals have more to do with the dead than the living.
As far as you are concerned, it may indeed matter not one bit what your funeral is like. But think of your survivors, those who loved you and knew about your beliefs. Unless you’ve made it quite clear what you want, or equally clear that you don’t care, they will immediately have to wrestle with massive uncertainty. Should we have a clergyman officiate? Can it be in a church, or is that inappropriate? Will Aunt Gladys blow a vein if we hang a picture of Andromeda over the crucifix? Is “Ave Maria” too religious to have sung?
You get the idea. The nonreligious have an even greater responsibility to be explicit because there’s no institution spelling it out for their survivors. Many religious expressions have the same basic interchangeable funereal elements, but a nonreligious service has to be planned from scratch. If you do wish to keep religion out of it, use the books in the Resource section to spell out your wishes, right down to the music and readings. Or, if you truly don’t care, make that absolutely explicit to spare your heirs from infighting, guilt, and uncertainty.
Q: Neither of my kids (3 and 6) has ever had to deal with death, but they have several older relatives to whom they are very close. How can I prepare my kids as well as possible for their first encounter with death?
A: The first way is to naturalize the topic from the very beginning. We have an almost unlimited ability to accept things, even incredibly strange and difficult things, if they are presented to us as normal form the start. Next time you talk to your mother, flash on the fact that you emerged into the world through her body. It doesn’t get stranger than that—but because (storkists aside) we have always known this, we simply talk to her as if she were another person in the world instead of our portal into it. We accept something transcendently strange as normal because it has never been otherwise. The inimitable Douglas Adams captured this nicely when he said,“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas-covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”10
The same applies to mortality. If children start out with the knowledge that we genuinely die, they will think this to be normal. Not exciting, not even easy, perhaps, but they are much more likely to accept the reality and actually get on with the lifelong work of understanding it if they begin with it. They might even see how it makes every moment of life itself so much more fantastically precious. So never treat death as an untouchable subject. Touch it all over. The more familiar, the less frightening. It’s a lifelong challenge to come to terms with death, but our kids will be all the further along if they don’t have to waste time and effort erasing heaven and hell from their conceptual maps.
Pets can also contribute, however unwillingly, to our lifelong education in mortality. Although we don’t buy pets in order for kids to experience death (with the possible exception of aquariums, aack!), most every pet short of a giant land tortoise will predecease its owner. The deaths of my various guinea pigs, dogs, fish, and rabbits were my first introductions to irretrievable loss. At their passings, I learned both how to grieve and the depth of love I was capable of feeling. And I am certain they helped prepare me for the sudden loss of my father. It didn’t make the loss itself any easier, nor did it shorten my grief, which continues to this day. But the grief didn’t blindside me in quite the way it would have if my father’s death had been my first experience of profound loss.
Q: I can understand that the experience of a pet’s death helps to prepare a child for even more traumatic losses to come, but how can I help my kids weather the loss of the pet itself? We have a much-loved older dog, and I’m concerned as I think of the huge impact his death will have on my kids. What should I say? What should I do with the body? I want this to be a healthy experience for all of us about handling our emotions and the logistics of death.
A: The death of a pet can be nearly as devastating to a child as the death of another member of the family. The first priority is to recognize that and to be certain you are taking the loss just that seriously. That said, here are a few of the guidelines agreed upon by child development specialists:
• Prepare well in advance. Talking about the fact that your dog will not live forever can help them to make the most of their remaining time with him and to feel that they have properly said goodbye. Take photos and videos with the pet. If they wish, have children write a letter to the pet while still living expressing their love for him.
• Be honest. Just as in the death of a person, it is important to be honest about what has happened. Don’t say that Prince has gone on a trip or (yikes) that he fell asleep and didn’t wake up. Take advantage of the opportunity to gently introduce the reality of death while reassuring the child of the many consolations that can help us through our grief.
• Involve the child—up to a point. If you do plan to bury the pet (and yes, that is an acceptable option if City Hall allows it), give the child the option of attending. Announcing that the pet has been buried after the fact can seriously impede the grieving process, delay a sense of closure, and fracture the child’s trust in you. Have everyone tell stories about the pet over the grave, sing a song, leave a toy, say goodbye. It is never appropriate, however, to involve a child in the decision to euthanize a pet. Such a complex and multilayered ethical decision is agony even for adults. In most cases it is also not advised that young children be present for the euthanasia, although teens may wish to decide for themselves. It can be helpful to the grief process for the children to see the pet once more after the euthanasia is completed. It’s a moment guaranteed to break any parent’s heart, but many parents report that the closure process is more difficult without that final visit.
• Validate their sadness and encourage their thinking. As with the death of a person, it’s important to validate their pain and grief, to give them permission to cry, and to allow them to see and hear your own feelings. Invite questions and answer them gently but honestly. This will often be your child’s first engagement in a lifelong inquiry. Honor that process by attending to it.
These early experiences can literally teach children how to grieve—a non-negotiable part of every life. In the process, they can learn much about themselves and their own emotions while moving forward in their reflections on the fact that everything that lives also dies.
Q: My 7-year-old daughter has recently been expressing fears about her own death. How can I comfort her when I don’t believe in an afterlife?
A: Philosophers throughout the ages have grappled with the idea of death and produced some genuine consolations for the more mature mind, several of which are discussed below. As for the youngest kids, there are two main ways to relieve immediate fears:
1. Distance in time. It make seem like a cheap sleight-of-hand, but simply assuring the youngest children that they will live a long, long time before dying is quite effective. When at the age of 7 my daughter Erin first said, “I don’t want to die,” I simply replied, “I know what you mean. I don’t either! But you’re gonna live a hundred years first. You’ll be older than Mom, even older than Grandma before your life is done!” To a 7-year-old,“older than Grandma” is close enough to immortal to alleviate fear (at least until the midlife crisis).
2. Correct misconceptions of death. When I was a kid trying to conceive of death without an afterlife, I got a truly terrifying image—let’s call it “me-floating-in-darkness-forever.” Compared to that (and compared to the terror of hell and the boredom of heaven), genuine nonexistence is downright lovely.
Q: So how do you conceive of nonexistence? I have a devil of a time grasping it myself.
A: You do, eh? Then I’m guessing you are a conscious being. There’s nothing harder for a conscious being to conceive than unconscious nonbeing. It’s entirely outside our experience because it is the absence of experience, the absence of perception.
That’s the flaw in “me-floating-in-darkness.” Darkness must be perceived. Instead, you have to grasp nonexistence. And there’s one great way to do this: by recognizing that you “nonexisted” before—and for quite a long time at that.
This idea, variously attributed to the philosophers Epicurus and Lucretius, is called the “symmetry argument.” Your life is bounded not by one period of nonexistence, but two: the period after your death and the period before your birth. If a child—or an adult, for that matter—expresses fear at the idea of death, ask if she was afraid a hundred years ago. When she laughs and says “Of course not! I wasn’t anywhere!” explain that the time after her life is done will be exactly the same. There is literally no difference. There’s some real consolation there.
Q: What other consolations of philosophy and science can help nonreligious people come to terms with death?
A: Different people find consolation in different ideas and at different stages in their consideration of mortality. Here are three others to try on for size:
1. Conservation. National Public Radio commentator Aaron Freeman offered a thought-provoking consolation in the form of an essay titled “You Want a Physicist to Speak at Your Funeral.” An excerpt:
You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy … every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world….
There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.
And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith…. The science is sound…. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen.11
Some will find physical conservation to be irrelevant and unconsoling. Others, myself included, see a door to a greater appreciation for our part in the continuing cosmos. Every atom of your body has been around since the dawn of time and will continue to the end of time. That they assembled to form you for a little while is astonishing and wonderful. That “you” continue to exist, albeit in greater disarray, is a point well worth pondering.
2. The inversion of death and life. We tend to think of life as our natural condition and death as some sort of affront to that condition. But seeing your existence in the longer view can flip that on its head. Since the stuff that makes you up has always been here and will always be here, nonexistence can be seen as our normal condition. But for one short blip in that vast nonexistence, pop—here you are. Existing. Conscious. Instead of seeing death as an outrage, this view allows us to see death as the universal norm and life as the giddy exception.
Arthur Dobrin puts it this way: “I think there are two ultimate sources of comfort for the bereaved. The first is the recognition that the great mystery is not death but birth, not that someone loved is now gone but that the person was here at all.”12 By really grasping this inverted view, our mourning of death can be converted to gratitude for life.
3. How amazingly unlikely was your birth. Closely related to the above is the contemplation of the incredible odds against each of us ever existing. For billions of years, you were simply stuff—a lot of dissociated elements. Most of the universe—99.999999+ percent of it—remains insensate, unconscious, inert. But you got lucky. Out of all the quadrillions of possible combinations of elements and DNA, and despite the infinite number of things that could have kept all of your direct ancestors from meeting, from finding each other attractive, from mating (at precisely the right time) and from raising you to adulthood—despite all of that incredible improbability, here you are. Congratulations.
In the light of that incredible good fortune, whining about the fact that life doesn’t go on forever begins to seem incredibly piggy, don’t you think?
These are some of the consolations I find meaningful. Others find consolation in art, in music, in transcendent poetry—or in the mythic imagination. Take your pick.
Q: My 10-year-old nephew was recently struck by a car and killed. How can I help my children deal with their cousin’s sudden death at so young an age?
A: There is no denying that the death of a person so young—which feels like such a subversion of the natural order—brings a terrible additional burden to those who grieve. Rev. Dr. Kendyl Gibbons noted that “When a sibling or friend near the child’s own age dies, it often feels more tragic and wasteful to the adults, and bewildering to the child, because such things are not ‘supposed’ to happen.”13 In addition to all of the same comforts described for more “ordinary” bereavements, children in these situations need to be particularly reassured that they themselves are not at any increased risk as a result of the tragedy. At the same time, it would not be inappropriate to underline the ways in which they can ensure their own safety (seat belts, caution, etc.). If a child seems especially affected by a tragic death, professional counseling is an option worth investigating.
Although nonreligious parents will not have access to religious comforts in these situations, they do have one notable advantage: They are freed from the unenviable task of explaining how an all-good and all-powerful god can allow such things to happen.
“I Guess We’ll Never See You Again”
Our success as parents of a grieving child is not measured in inverse proportion to the number of tears or the depth of sadness. The most loving approach is often the most honest—one that looks mortality in the eye, affirms and validates sadness, and lets the griever find the voice of his grief.
When 4-year-old Lucas began to ask about death, his father Andrew loved and respected him enough to take his questions seriously. What follows is a moving and heartfelt account by Andrew of his son’s early grapplings with mortality, brought to the fore by the death of a beloved pet. It was first posted on the discussion forum at www.AtheistParents.org on April 30, 2008.
Today our cat Seymour gave up the ghost. He was 17 years old and his kidneys failed.
After he died, I went out back to dig a grave for him, with Lucas in tow. Lucas was very excited to dig the grave. He has this interest in graveyards and cemeteries. Part of it is that he likes “spooky things,” and part of it is his questions about death. About five months ago he started to ask me about death. I told him, “Everything that is living will someday die.” One night he asked if an old lady on TV was going to die, and I said “Everything that is living will someday die.” He then asked, “Will I die?”
I told him with a measured voice, “Everything that is living will someday die.”
“I DON’T WANT TO DIE!” he said. “I WANT TO STAY HERE ALL THE DAYS! I WANT TO PLAY WITH ALL THE CARS! I WANT TO GO TO ALL THE RESTAURANTS! I WANT TO READ ALL THE BOOKS! I DON’T WANT TO DIE!” After some explanations and some more tears, he seemed to calm down.
Since then, “spooky things” and cemeteries have become more prevalent in his play. And then, Seymour was gone.
After April came home and I consoled her, we made our way out to the meager grave. Lucas was ahead of us, almost skipping, “We dug a grave, and we are going to put Seymour’s body in it.” We laid his body down in the hole, and Lucas gave a giggle or two as we put the first shovelful of dirt on top of our departed cat. By the second shovelful, tears were streaming down the boy’s face.
“Goodbye, Seymour,” he said. “I guess we’ll never see you again,” and swallowing the words faster then he could say them—“I love you.”
He picked some dandelions and wild violets and placed them on top of the dirt pile. “I loved him too much. I hope he is not sick in my memories.” He put a big cinderblock at one side of the hole and asked April to write “Mommy, Daddy, and Lucas Loves Seymour.”
—Andrew d’Apice
Activities
Whistling Through the Graveyard
All ages
Some of the most meaningful and profound conversations I’ve had with my kids have been in cemeteries. No long car trip is complete in our family without pulling over at a roadside cemetery to stretch our legs and ponder the amazing situation we’re in.
Choose well—at least a century of age and a good variety of headstones is best. No need to script it. A kid who has never heard that death is “morbid” or otherwise been shielded from healthy engagement will immediately begin to shout out discoveries. There will be tragedies—the 19-year-old who died in 1944, most likely a soldier; the wife followed just weeks later in death by her husband; a father and his 7-year-old son gone on the same day; infants and young children; a dozen dead in a single winter, perhaps from an epidemic. But there will also be the 108-year-old matriarch whose name matches that of the town, expressions of familial love, and endless evidence of lives well-lived.
If you’ve found a cemetery that includes epitaphs—Beloved Mother, Artist and Visionary, He Made So Many People Happy, etc.—muse aloud on what you’d like your own to be. What brief sentence sums up the life you hope to be remembered for? The kids will need no invitation to chime in with their own—or to suggest what yours should really be!
If you find yourself thinking these activities are somehow too ghoulish, snap out of it! Give the cemetery walk a try, then drop me an email of thanks.
Related topic of conversation:
Imagine your own funeral. What would you want said of you? What do you fear might be said? What can you do right now to change the “script”?
Talking About “Right-to-Die” Issues
Age 8+
Find age-appropriate ways to discuss a story in the news that involves “right to die” issues. Let your kids know your own wishes regarding your end-of-life treatment and WRITE IT DOWN in an easily accessible place.
Other End-of-Life Issues
Age 6+
Casually talk about your own preferences (cremation, burial, etc.) and where you would like to be buried, scattered, etc. Modeling comfort with the discussion can help kids. Ask them where they would like to be buried or have their ashes scattered. Again: If you find yourself recoiling at the idea of such a conversation, reread this chapter. Kids tend to deal with these issues more matter-of-factly than adults.
The Buddha and the Mustard Seed
Ages 4–8
This activity (described by Molleen Matsumura earlier in this chapter—see box) is especially useful when your family has experienced a loss. Act out the story of Buddha and the mustard seed. A woman goes to see a great teacher (the Buddha) and asks him to bring her child back to life. He tells her to bring him a mustard seed from a house in which no one has lost a child, a spouse, a parent, or a friend. After spending the day looking for such a house, she comes back empty-handed, but with the understanding that death and grief are universal.
To act out the story, have your child knock on the wall or a table and ask for a mustard seed, each time, make up a different story of a death in that house, like,“My grandfather was very, very old, and he died last week,” or,“My dog ran into the street and got hit by a car.” Each time, mention that the two people comfort each other somehow (e.g., by talking, or offering something to eat). Finally, knock on the wall and say, “Now the mother is knocking on our door.” Have your child pretend to answer the door. Take the role of the grieving mother as your child explains who your family has lost and what you are doing about it. This activity goes beyond the original story’s message that death comes to us all by highlighting the ways that people can support each other.
The Memory Candle
All ages
On the birthday of someone who has died, or on the anniversary of the person’s death, light a 24-hour memory candle (in a glass container). Share stories of the person as you light it. Caring for the flame creates a pleasant sense of caring for the person, and the slowly disappearing candle serves as a poignant reminder of the cycle of life and the power of memory.
The idea of a “deathday” observance was popularized, but not invented, by J.K. Rowling for the Harry Potter series. Jewish tradition includes the Yahrzeit, precisely this kind of commemoration. Search for “Yahrzeit candle” online to find 24-hour commemoration candles.
Talking About Death Won’t Kill You14
All ages
Because we are surrounded by life, we are also surrounded by death. Adults tend to stop noticing the dead bird in the backyard, the fly on the windowsill, the opossum by the roadside. Take advantage of a child’s ability to see and comment on these things by engaging the questions around it. How do you think it happened? Do you think she’s feeling any pain now? What do you think will happen to the bird’s body in a week, a year, ten years? Where will the molecules of the bird’s body be a thousand years from now?
If a small pet dies, and if you have a yard, bury your pet (or spread its ashes) together. Plant it under a small fruit tree or flowering shrub, or plant flowers over it; your child will have the experience of the pet literally turning to something wonderful.
Day of the Dead
All ages
Create a Day of the Dead altar with your child and talk about the memories that you have of a loved one. (See more about Day of the Dead activities in Chapter 3).
The Bucket List
All ages
Make a list with your children of what they want to do and be before they die—a list of “A Life of No Regrets.”
Resources
Planning Nonreligious Funerals/Memorials
York, Sarah. Remembering Well: Rituals for Celebrating Life and Mourning Death (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000). The author, a Unitarian Universalist minister, clearly has both experience with and concern for the nonreligious bereaved. An outstanding resource.
Bennett, Amanda, and Terence Foley. In Memoriam: A Practical Guide to Planning a Memorial Service (New York: Fireside, 1997). Includes over eighty pages of suggested readings, many nonreligious.
Munro, Eleanor. Readings for Remembrance (New York: Penguin, 2000). Includes many wonderfully unconventional readings from philosophy, fiction, oratory, and poetry, from such minds as Joyce, Homer, Lao-Tzu, Ovid, Tolstoy, and Dante, and from sources as divergent as Buddhism, the Aztecs, and postmodernism.
Willson, Jane Wynne. Funerals Without God (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1991). Still the last word in last words.
For the Grieving Child
Silverman, Janis. Help Me Say Goodbye: Activities for Helping Kids Cope When a Special Person Dies (Hudson, NY: Fairview, 1999). An art therapy book with activities for grieving kids. Ages 4–8.
Dennison, Amy, Allie, and David. Our Dad Died: The True Story of Three Kids Whose Lives Changed (Minneapolis: Free Spirit, 2003). Dad died unexpectedly in his sleep from arrhythmia. Mom had the kids (8, 8, and 4 at the time) journal for two years. Although the family is Jewish, there is very little reference to or reliance on religious ideas. Quite simply, there is no other book like this. Powerful, moving, compelling. Age 8+.
Romain, Trevor. What on Earth Do You Do When Someone Dies? (Minneapolis: Free Spirit, 1999). Honest, compassionate, original. Highly recommended by grief therapists. Ages 9–12.
When a Pet Dies
Rogers, Fred. When a Pet Dies (New York: Putnam Juvenile, 1998). Ages 3–6. Thank goodness for this gentle, intelligent soul (who was also an ordained Presbyterian minister, by the way).
Wilhelm, Hans. I’ll Always Love You (Albuquerque: Dragonfly, 1988). An unbeatable, classic tearjerker about the loss of a pet and the continuity of love. Ages 4–8.
Viorst, Judith. The Tenth Good Thing About Barney (New York: Aladdin, 1987). A little boy thinks of nine good things about his cat Barney, who died last Friday. But after the burial, he thinks of a tenth good thing—a naturalistic and wonderful thing that nonreligious parents will appreciate. Ages 4–8.
For the Grieving Teen
Fitzgerald, Helen. The Grieving Teen: A Guide for Teenagers and Their Friends (New York: Fireside, 2000).
Gootman, Marilyn, and Pamela Espeland. When a Friend Dies: A Book for Teens About Grieving and Healing (Minneapolis: Free Spirit, 2005).
Dougy Center. Helping Teens Cope with Death (Portland, OR: Dougy Center, 1999).
For the Bereaved Parent
Mitchell, Ellen, et al. Beyond Tears: Living After Losing a Child (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2005). Nine mothers who lost children co-authored this powerful and effective guide for surviving the ultimate loss. Adult.
The Compassionate Friends
A wonderful international support organization for bereaved parents and their supporters. “Espouse(s) no specific religious or philosophical ideology.”
Helping Kids Think About Death
Hill, Frances. The Bug Cemetery (New York: Holt, 2002). Kids find a dead ladybug and conduct a mock funeral, then another and another for all the dead bugs in the neighborhood. All is fun and games until Billy’s cat is hit by a car, and sadness becomes real. Not unlike Margaret Wise Brown’s classic The Dead Bird, but the twist makes it even more powerful. Ages 4–8.
Brown, Laurie Krasny, and Marc Brown. When Dinosaurs Die: A Guide to Understanding Death (New York: Little, Brown Young Readers, 1998). “No one can really understand death, but to children, the passing away of a loved one can be especially perplexing and troublesome.” Chapters include “What Does Alive Mean?” “Why Does Someone Die?” “What Does Dead Mean?” “Saying Goodbye,” “Keeping Customs,” “What Comes After Death?” and “Ways to Remember Someone”.“My family thinks Mom’s soul is with God,” says one character, “but I’m not sure.”What better recommendation for freethinking families than that single sentence. Ages 4–8.
Buscaglia, Leo. The Fall of Freddie the Leaf: 20th Anniversary Edition (Thorofare, NJ: Slack, 2002). One of the great beloved classics, Freddie follows a single leaf through spring and summer and into fall. As he watches other leaves fall, he realizes and eventually comes to terms with the fact that the same will happen to him. Ages 6–12.
Schweibert, Pat, and Chuck DeKlyen. Tear Soup, 3rd ed. (Portland, OR: Grief Watch, 2005). Hard to imagine a more beautifully conceived and written affirmation of grieving. Simply perfect. Ages 4–8.
Movies Exploring Death and Loss
See Appendix 1 for a complete table of suggested films including ratings and age appropriateness.
Three Best Works of Kid Lit Exploring the Topic of Death
White, E. B. Charlotte’s Web (New York: HarperCollins, 1952, renewed 1980). Ages 6–12.
Babbitt, Natalie. Tuck Everlasting (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1985). Ages 6–12.
Paterson, Katherine. Bridge to Terabithia (New York: HarperTeen, 2004). Age 9+.
Reflections for Adults and Young Adults
Dobrin, Arthur. Love Is Stronger Than Death (1986). A beautiful, moving, thoughtful piece of work, now out of print but available online at www.ethicalunion.org/loveis/index.html
Willson, Harry. Myth and Mortality—Testing the Stories (Albuquerque: Amador, 2007). This engaging and thoughtful book looks at thirty-two beliefs dealing with death and assesses their helpfulness in confronting mortality. Willson is a former missionary pastor who is now a secular humanist social justice activist.
Wilson, Robert Anton. “Cheerful Reflections on Death and Dying.” Google it, or brave the long URL: www.deepleafproductions.com/wilsonlibrary/texts/raw-dying.html
Morris, Virginia. Talking About Death Won’t Kill You (New York: Workman, September 10, 2001). A wonderfully healthy and candid look at death and our tendency to avoid the topic. The publication date alone is enough to grab one’s attention.
Montross, Christine. Body of Work: Meditations on Mortality from the Human Anatomy Lab (New York: Penguin Press, 2007). Not for everyone, but for those interested in a very (very) direct look at mortality through the lens of the physical, this is worth looking into.
Enright, D.J. (Ed.). The Oxford Book of Death (London: Oxford University Press, 2002). A magnificent anthology of writings on death and dying.
Nuland, Sherwin. How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter (New York: Vintage, 1995). A brilliant and important contribution to the literature, written from the perspective of a physician with the heart of a sage.
Byock, Ira, M.D. Dying Well (New York: Riverhead Trade, 1998). A book lauded for its “humanistic soul,” Dying Well is a clear-eyed, thoughtful excursion through the process of decline and death, built around the author’s experience of his own father’s death.
See also the following reviews in Parenting Beyond Belief:
Emswiler, James, and Mary Ann. Guiding Your Child through Grief (New York: Bantam, 2000).
Arent, Ruth P., MA, MSW. Helping Children Grieve (Belgium, WI: Champion Press, 2005).
Thomas, Pat. I Miss You–A First Look at Death (New York: Barron’s, 2000). Ages 3–8.
Bryant-Mole, Karen. Talking About Death (Redwood City, CA: Raintree, 1999). Ages 4–8.
Rothman, Juliet Cassuto. A Birthday Present for Daniel: A Child’s Story of Loss (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2001). Ages 7–10.
Trozzi, Maria, M.Ed. Talking with Children About Loss (New York: Perigee Trade, 1999).
Notes
1. Emswiler, James, and Emswiler, Mary Ann, Guiding Your Child Through Grief (New York: Bantam Books, 2000), p. 112.
2. Konner, Melvin, The Tangled Wing (New York: Holt Paperback, 2003), p. 369.
3. Dawkins, Richard, “Religion’s misguided missiles.” The Guardian (UK), September 15, 2001.
4. Oh … that was me: Accessed August 2, 2008, from http://parentingbeyondbelief.com/blog/?p=71
5. See Emswiler, James, and Emswiler, Mary Ann, Guiding Your Child Through Grief (New York: Bantam, 2000) for an excellent example of a mainstream parenting book with similar caveats.
6. These same suggestions are offered by many grief practitioners and authors, but few as clearly and concisely as The Compassionate Friends’ website. Accessed July 8, 2008, from www.compassionatefriends.org
7. Several other cultures in what is now Mexico and Central America observed festivals with similar rituals and iconography, including the Maya, Olmec, Zapotec, and Mixtec.
8. See the entry on Halloween and Samhain in the Q&A section of Chapter 6, “Celebrating Life.”
9. This was not the case in earlier historical periods when child and infant mortality were significantly higher.
10. From an impromptu address at Digital Biota 2, Cambridge, UK, September 1998. Full text available at www.biota.org/people/douglasadams. Accessed March 22, 2008.
11. Freeman, Aaron.“You Want a Physicist to Speak at Your Funeral,” National Public Radio, June 1, 2005. Available in podcast at www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4675953. Accessed March 22, 2008.
12. From Chapter 1 of Love Is Stronger Than Death (1986). Accessed May 4, 2008, from www.ethicalunion.org/loveis/index.html
13. Parenting Beyond Belief, pp. 170–171.
14. See the book of the same name in the Resources section.