“I thought you were with your dad,” the mother said.
“I was, but I wanted to see Grandpa.”
His mother, tears in her eyes, put her arm around her son and together
they looked at the man who each had known all their lives.
“He looks nice,” the boy said.
“He does,” the mother replied. “He always did. He liked looking nice.” She then whispered something to her son which
I couldn’t hear. He walked away.
A few minutes later, I saw him approach again. His mother had moved away for the
moment. A man the boy didn’t know was at
the casket. They looked at each other,
and then the boy said, “He looks like he’s sleeping, but he’s dead. It’s not really him anymore. He’s gone to heaven.” Having explained this, the boy rejoined his
dad.
During the funeral service, the boy watched me intently as I spoke
about his grandpa and of God being present with us even in moments of our
deepest grief.
At the graveside service, the boy stood quietly beside his mother and
dad. As we waited for others to join us , I
noticed the boy trying to see under the casket and behind it. His mother gently reminded him to be still.
He was until I finished the prayer which closed the graveside service.
His mother’s momentary tears gave him the opportunity to slip from her
side. He approached the casket and knelt
to look under it. His mother spied him
and called out, “You need to come on.
You’re going to be in the way.”
“It’s okay,” I told her. I knelt
beside him and asked, “What were you trying to see?”
“That’s where they’re going to put grandpa’s body. Right?”
I told him that was right. Then,
pointing to the bottom of the grave, he asked, “What’s that thing down there?”
“That’s the bottom of something called a vault.” I told him. I then took him around behind the grave so
that he could see the lid of the vault.
I explained that his grandpa’s casket would be lowered into the bottom
portion and then the lid would be placed on top.
“So, the casket won’t get dirty, will it?” With that, he was off to rejoin his
parents. He just wanted—and dare I say
needed—to know.
In the course of my forty plus years as a pastor, I’ve seen children
handled in a variety of ways whenever death touched their families. Some parents have kept them away. For these children, a loved one will have
mysteriously slipped away. Some parents
allowed them to come and, unintentionally I trust, have given less than helpful
information. For instance, I’ve heard
parents tell a child that the deceased “is just asleep.” Such children will soon wonder just how safe
going to sleep is. I’ve seen parents
force children to look in the casket when they obviously didn’t want to do so
or were not quite ready to do so. Such
an action is traumatizing for both children and adults.
Thankfully, there are also those wonderful parents who seem
instinctively to know that children need to be around the funeral home and the
funeral service. They need simple
explanations, which require parents to listen in order to discover what
children actually want to know.
Answering questions they are not asking is of little help. Ignoring the questions they are asking is
even less helpful. The little boy I
observed may have said to his mother, “Is grandpa sleeping?” To which she may
well have replied, “He looks like he’s sleeping, but he’s dead. It’s not really him anymore. He’s gone to heaven.” It was a good response.
One of the great values of children being allowed to participate in
funeral visitations and services to the extent they desire to do so is that they get to
see adults, particularly their parents and immediate family members, reacting to
loss and grief. It is an act of
modeling. A child sees his dad or mother
weeping and learns it is okay to weep.
She sees them weeping one minute and laughing another and learns that it
is okay to be both sad and happy.
Children learn to handle death in the same way they learn so many other
things—by watching the adults who are responsible for their upbringing.
But aren’t some children too young to bring to the funeral home? Perhaps some are; but if children are old
enough to miss the deceased and the deceased has been a central part of their
lives, they are going to grieve and have lots of questions, whether they ask
them or not. Being present at the funeral
visitation and service affirms their place with their family. It may lead to more questions, but those
questions will be better ones than the ones that may rise from a child’s
imagination. Children, like adults, will
try to make sense of death. If children
are involved in the rituals that surround death, they have a better chance of
making good sense.
More important than a child’s age is the manner in which they are
treated by the primary adults in their lives.
When it comes to approaching the casket or putting a note or some gift
in the casket, children need to be allowed to determine their actions and set
their own pace. This is one place where
children of any age should not be forced to do what they do not want to
do. It is one thing for a parent to
encourage a child to come with him/her to the casket. It is quite another for a child to be forced
to do so.
The little boy I observed just wanted to know. When he had his answers, he was ready to move
on. I’m sure he had more questions in
the days and weeks to come; but because he was present and his initial
questions were addressed, he left knowing that questions were okay.
We can’t protect children from the grief of loss that accompanies the
death of a loved one. We can and should
welcome them to share in our rituals of remembrance and grief.
