How To Explain Death: A Child's Perspective

By Jessica Brooks

Editor

As I am laying in bed on October 20, 2001 in the early hours of the morning, my home phone rings.  Every time the phone rings it sounds the same, but this particular morning there was an eerie sound to it.

My feet hit the floor, I felt the cold wood floor hit the bottom of my toes and as I watched my mother pick up the phone, I witnessed her face transform from someone who was barely awake, to someone who was at full attention with a tear falling from her left eye then her right. Being a child who is extremely close to her mother, I felt that pain coursing through my body before I knew what was actually wrong and then I was told that my grandfather had died in his sleep.

My mom and I got dressed and drove to the nursing home that was only about a ten minute drive from our house, but this ride seemed like it took forever for us to get there. Its almost like time stopped and we took every opportunity with permission from the universe to prolong the ride before our final goodbye.  As my mom parks the car, she looks at me a says, “Are you ready?” I remembered looking at her as if I couldn't comprehend what she was saying and then we were walking to my Pop Pop’s room. What was I going to see? Was he going to look different?  Then one of the nurses that escorted us to the room turned the knob.

It was as if when the door opened, there was a strong wind that hit me in my face.  My hand took comfort inside my mother’s as we walked to the bed that I’ve walked to a thousand times, but this time was different.  I knew that I wouldn't see that warm smile across my grandfather’s face. I wouldn’t be able to squeeze him and crack a joke or two.  There would be no laughter.  Nothing.  The nurse gave this sympathizing look to my mom before she slowly pulled the curtain back and there he was. My Pop Pop. Laying there as if he were asleep and at peace.  

Even though I was sad and watched the tears stream down my mother’s face, I couldn’t help but think if my parents were going to be next. What is death? How does death work? These questions replayed in my head every night before I went to sleep and the first thing I thought about when I woke up in the morning. I was frightened. The concept of death was new to me because it never happened to someone I was close with.

Unfortunately, as a young adult death has become more frequent in my life whether it be an older family member, friend, or someone around my neighborhood and no matter how old I get, I always relate death with my first experience with it as a child. Healthychildren.org, which is powered by pediatricians from the American Academy of Pediatrics, goes into full detail about how some children might deal with death.  The website even goes into depth about how a child might cope with specific family member’s death.

From grandparents, parents and even siblings, the different relationships that the child has with the individual greatly alters how children cope with the loss. The death of a grandparent may not be as traumatic according to the website. “When a grandparent dies, children may not find it as devastating as the loss of a parent or a sibling. To them, their grandparent is an older person, and when people get old, they often die.” As the explanation goes on, it also says that if the grandparent-grandchild relationship had a strong foundation before death occurred then the child is prone to taking the news harder and have a difficult time to adjusting to the change. The child may also not grasp the concept of death, making them feel that their parents might be next.  However, if the parents sit down and explain death in a way that their children can comprehend then this can serve as a life lesson that would ultimately prepare them for other loses they will experience in life.

Death is something that is inevitable and unfortunately never gets easier to deal with as we transform from children into adults. The one thing we can control is the way we help young children cope and try to find different approaches in order to make children at ease with such a difficult process. I was fortunate enough to have parents that took the time to explain and whether your explanation is linked to your religious beliefs or scientific knowledge, any way that helps a child get through a life shaking experience such as death can really alter the way life is lived rather than an innocent child worrying about how life will end.