Visions
- On Death
- The World Of Spirits
- Death Of A Child
- A Laborer and a Doubter
- Wasted Opportunities
- The Mansions of Heaven
Messages
The Loss Suffered By Children
The other day, my eldest son came home from school and I asked him how his day was. My son is a naturally upbeat and happy child, so he usually speaks of all the good things that happened at school that day. This day was different. This day when I asked him how the day went, he said "bad".
I inquired what the problem was thinking it had to do with academics or some other frustration a public school can offer a child. He didn't answer me immediately. He sought out the daily newspaper and was analyzing each page, looking for something specific. I know that sometimes his classes discuss local, national and international issues and I thought that he was going to point out something exasperating that had happened in the news. He did this for quite some time, but could not find what he was looking for.
Then he said "my friend died over the weekend in an auto accident".
It turns out that his friend had been in transit with his family and the boy and both parents died in the crash. Another school friend who waved the notice that was listed in the local newspaper in his face greeted my son with this. The school offered grief counseling for those who wanted it. This didn't change the fact that my son, who had never lost someone he cared about in his life, was standing before me trying to cope with the loss of a very good friend.
My first response was to embrace him. As a parent you try to prepare your child for every eventuality that life is going to throw at them. All parents try, but there are some areas that we just aren't prepared for and teaching our kids how to deal with loss is one of those areas. I think its because, being brutally honest, we all struggle with loss. We never truly move past the loss of someone we care about. We think we do, but we really don't. The only remedy if you can even call it that is time.
My son, after a few moments said something to me that shook me to my core. He said to me that he has been able to handle this because I had prepared him. Since he was very small, I had always talked to him about God and Heaven and life after death. So much so, that he would get bored with me always prattling on about it. "Yes, yes" I get it, can I go play now, was a tone I would often hear from my kids as they were growing up.
My loss as a child of people extremely close to me, was handled very differently...it wasn't handled at all. You were notified that the person you care about had died. There were funerals and an obligatory get together after the funeral, and then, you were just supposed to go about your business, like that person you cared about hadn't existed. I remember being a kid, and the feeling of losing someone you care about was like waking up one morning to discover your arm or leg was missing. Yes, there is the suffering, and the emotions but know one tells you how to deal with the actual lack, the loss of a person who was a part of your day-to-day life.
It took a long time for me to realize that the reason that those adults around me couldn't help me deal with loss, was no one had shown them how to deal with loss and they couldn't offer what they just didn't have. In my religious journey, dealing with loss has always been in the forefront of my mind. Not to sound morbid, but death is a part of life. Religion means to return to God. Any religion worth its salt must contend with this issue of loss straight on or it is a waste of time.
I have spoken with my children about death and what happens after, so very often. So often, that I thought they had tuned me out. Then, my son, tells me that all that talk about God and life after death had prepared him...as best it could for one of the harshest realities life has to offer, the loss of someone that is a part of our lives.
My son, will go through much on his own in dealing with this loss, but he shared something with me that I wanted to pass on. In the day of the loss of his friend, the kids at school were all trying to cope in their own ways. Many of them were condemning God for letting such a thing to happen. My son challenged those who said such a thing. He defended God from taking the blame for something that is not God's fault.
We are part of a big creation and life and death are a part of that creation. God is not picking out people to persecute and make suffer. My son, who would have as good a reason as any to want to find someone to blame, adamantly refused to listen to anyone berate God for the loss of a friend.
I know that the loss of a friend in this world is given very little attention. How many tragedies are happening daily worldwide that take out so many people, men, women and children who suffer daily everywhere. But each one of us, in a private way has to come to terms with loss, children who have never been told of death, have no way to come to terms with this part of life.
When we see people in other countries mourning and wailing at the death of their loved ones, we think that they are losing it, but the truth is the capacity to mourn and grieve, saves a person from being torn up on the inside. A person who doesn't let themselves grieve is being eaten away by a cancer that they refuse to acknowledge for fear that if they do, they will drown in their sorrow.
None of us, even the most well adjusted, is truly at peace with death. Those who say they are are not being honest with themselves. A Church should never tell a person not to mourn the loss of a loved one.
There was a time when a friend of mine died. My kids did not go to the funeral. The individual in question had died of a heart attack in his living room while talking with his wife. He was dead before the ambulance arrived. I attended the funeral but my kids were not in attendance. I would explain to my sons, who were very little at the time, that daddy's friend had died. You could see in their faces at the time, that they didn't understand death. It wasn't till I drove to the cemetery with them at a later date and visited my friend's grave, just one in a sea of graves that it began to resonate. My youngest son, still in a car seat saw me get back in the car. And he was very sad. I asked him why? He said, "daddy, I am sorry that your friend died. I know how I would feel if one of my friends died." You see, he understood what a friend was, and he understood that I would never see this friend again. He understood loss.
All new parents know that feeling of trying to keep their child from the harsh realities of life. They want to be there to bandage up their scrapes and scratches and help bring joy back to that little face. To help them put away the hurt. The parent doesn't know how to bandage up the hurt when it's on the inside.
After all the platitudes, and counseling, we should remember how a child is going to experience death. The thought that "they were just here" echoing in their heads. People of faith, should remember to teach our children the bigger plan of God's creation and share with them the future beyond the grave. We need to speak of this often, to the point that our kids roll their eyes because they have heard it so often. Why? So, when the day that they wake up to find they are missing someone important, that this will not cripple them, perpetually.
Parents need to help their children deal with grief; because the reality of them being confronted with the loss of those they care about is inevitable. Parents need to remind their children that the people that have passed on, have gone a place of peace, guided by the angels to the spirits of their loved ones, and that they will have a joyous reunion one day. We do not tell them this to make them happy, we tell them this because it is the truth.
If a child must say to its Mother or Father "but they were just here!", the parent can say with absolute certainty "they have just gone on ahead of us to Paradise. We will be together when Messiah calls us home."