Princess Butterfly: How to Explain Death & Dying to Young Children

    

     I was honored to write this post as a guest blogger for O'Connor Mortuary.  They have a great site for funeral services that includes a blog dealing with death and grieving.  Check it out!

     

I used to feel like the word “dead” hung awkwardly in the air whenever I said it in the presence of my daughter, Zoey.  In time, I realized there was no getting around this word or its meaning and I shouldn’t be afraid to use it.  Death is a part of life and I couldn’t shield her from this fact forever.  When Zoey was about 3-1/2 years old, a dying monarch butterfly gave me the confidence to broach this topic with her.

Zoey at her first funeral

She and her dad found the butterfly near our house and they brought it home to stay on our balcony. We named her “Princess Butterfly” and cheered her on, willing her to graciously fly away, until Zoey lost interest.  The next morning I found the butterfly still, her wings flat on the ground and quite obviously dead. Instead of sweeping it away, I decided to use this opportunity to explain death and what comes after that to Zoey.

I told her that the butterfly’s body had stopped working and what had made Princess Butterfly, “Princess Butterfly,” had gone to Heaven. I said that up in Heaven she was able to fly again. I explained that we needed to bury her. We used one of Zoey’s shovels to dig a small hole in the ground. I placed Princess Butterfly in what would be her final resting place and let Zoey cover her with dirt. I asked Zoey to say something she liked about Princess Butterfly. She said she liked her wings. Then we blew a kiss up to the sky. She was too young to really understand the never coming back aspect of death, but this was a starting point.

Shortly after Princess Butterfly came into our lives we experienced death in the family.  My grandmothers passed away within six months of each other.  Upon each passing, I reminded Zoey about the butterfly as I explained their deaths and the funerals we would attend.  Naturally, she had questions and concerns, but I answered them as simply as I could and eased her worries.  It wasn't easy and at times a little heartbreaking, but I'm no longer uncomfortable talking about death with her.    

So, here are some “How-To’s” that I hope will be helpful for other parents as they approach this sensitive, yet important, topic with their own children.

• Use something tangible to explain dying/death

  .  Finding an insect (like a butterfly), as an example of something that lives and dies is good place to start the conversation.  When you come across a bug (or something that your child isn’t emotionally attached to) that is dead or dying, take a moment to talk about it with your child. Maybe even name the bug.  Then use it to explain the process of dying. In your own words, you can explain that dying is a part of life and that our bodies get sick or old and stop working.  Hold a mock funeral and bury the bug.  Let your own spiritual beliefs guide you in how to explain what happens to us after we die.

• Prepare them ahead of time for what the day of the funeral will be like

  .  This way they already have a handle on things they will be seeing.  Remind them of the bug’s funeral.  Tell them that there will be a casket in front of the room and that people will talk about their deceased loved one.  Make it known that people may laugh or cry as they remember the person and that it’s okay to do both.  If they will go to the gravesite, explain that the casket will be moved there and will eventually be buried, like the bug they buried.  Let them know the cemetery is a place where people can go to remember someone and leave flowers.

• Answer questions simply, don’t provide unnecessary information

  Don’t elaborate, unless they ask you to.  For example, when Zoey asked me what happened to the bodies in the ground, I told her they just stayed there in the casket.  That was enough of an answer for her.  I didn’t want to put scary images in her head and left decomposition out of the conversation.  This was best for Zoey, at age four, but based on your child’s age, discussing this may be appropriate.  As your child’s parent, you will know what information your child is ready for.

• Let them know it’s ok to feel sad and cry

  Tell them it’s okay to miss the person that is gone.  Ask them to share what they liked best about their loved one.  Talk about good times that they experienced together and what memories they might have.  Look at pictures if you have them.

• Make them feel safe, don’t make death scary 

  The last thing you want is for your child to be afraid that they or you will die.  It’s a natural response for them to have, but don’t let them be frightened.  Hug them, ease their worries and let them know they have many more years before they need to worry about dying.

This will most likely be an ongoing conversation that will get more complex as they get older.  Ultimately, we all just want our kids to feel safe and loved.

At each of my grandmother’s funerals, Zoey and I blew a kiss up to the sky. It was a great moment and it was then that I truly felt like I was getting this whole “death” thing right.

Going Home: A Poem for Grandma

     I didn't have time to write a regular post this week.  So, instead I thought I'd share the poem I read at my Grandma's memorial.

Going Home

In your mind you were younger 

than your eighty-nine years and each day

the passage of time seemed to reverse 

and you were returning to a time when 

your mom was still the center of your universe.  

The lines between then and now had blurred

and the home you had lived in most of your

life, no longer felt like yours, but hers. 

A little more than a month ago,

you told me you had recently visited her house.

With a gleam in your eyes and amazement

in your tone, you exclaimed that you couldn’t 

believe it, but you had been to your mom’s house.

You said, “I should take you there sometime.”

I didn’t shake my head at this, didn’t say 

you must’ve been mistaken or that it just wasn’t 

possible, because for you, in that moment,

I wished it was.  Instead, I chose to believe, 

returned your smile and said I would love to see it.

In the coming weeks, I watched you drift in and out of sleep, 

sometimes lucid and other times lost.

I watched you become childlike, needing others for survival, 

yet I was still so amazed by your strength.  

One day, I heard you mumble “mama, mama,”

and I was struck by how much you sounded like 

my one year old son saying my name and I longed

for you to feel the comfort of your mama’s arms,

the way he can feel mine.

Now that you are gone, Grandma,

I imagine you’re in a familiar place. 

It’s nearing dusk and your mom is standing

on the porch calling you inside.  

You are young and rush toward the sound

of her voice, the chatter of your siblings 

getting louder as you approach.

As you are almost through the doorway

she pats you on the top of the head, 

says your name and as your feet hit that carpet,

the carpet that you had been remembering, 

it is now possible for you to be there

and you’re home.  

Zoey Grasps for Butterflies

It’s difficult for me to wrap my heart and mind around the forever of death, so I can’t imagine how a young mind like Zoey’s might struggle with it.  When her last living great grandparent died recently, it was her second real life experience with a death of someone she had known since birth.  When her Great Grandma Larson died six months ago, I used an experience with a dying butterfly to explain the process of dying, the subsequent memorial and burial.  She seemed to understand as much as an almost four year old mind could at the time.  It was a closed casket and we opted to have her and Hunter, who was of course clueless, attend the memorial.  I had used the butterfly to prepare her for what the memorial would be like.  She squirreled around with her brother and cousins during the service.  She watched as her great grandma’s casket was carried from the mortuary to the hearse that would drive her to the cemetery.  I had explained what she would see and she didn’t ask a great deal of questions at the time.  When it came time to say goodbye, she put a rose on the casket along with the rest of us and we blew a kiss up to the sky.

Grandma Lovatt with her grandkids and great grandkids

Zoey is now four years old and her mind is a little more able to contemplate dying.  Her Great Grandma Lovatt passed away this month in January.  Her death didn’t come suddenly as the first had, but still hadn’t been expected.  Zoey had heard me talking about my grandma being in the hospital and understood I was coming home late as I was often visiting her.  As the weeks wore on, it appear that my grandma would die during her stay in the hospital, but she did.  The day she died, I helped my mom and Uncle plan the memorial.  When I came home that night, I told Zoey her great grandma had died.  She didn’t have an emotional response, just sort of looked off and said, “Oh.”

She didn’t ask questions or seem bothered by the news until the night before the memorial.  I had been preparing her for what to expect as I often do with new experiences.  I told her that there would be a casket in the room and people would stand next to it and talk about her great grandma.  Hunter was asleep for the night and Zoey and I were watching Curious George.  I wasn’t prepared for the questions or the feelings that were to come and tried to choose my words carefully in response, as I didn’t want to give her too much detail or make death scary for her.

She asked what happened to your body when it was in the ground. I told her it stayed in the casket and was buried in a place where people could visit.  I told her the things that made her, “her,” like her mind, heart and soul would go to another place called Heaven.  She asked if your eyes are open or closed when you die.  I told her normally they were closed.  She said she wanted hers open.  I told her that would be okay.  After her TV show was over we headed to the bathroom to brush her teeth.  Before we walked into the bathroom she stopped me.  She whimpered a bit and said she didn’t want to die.  I dropped to her level and put my arms around her.  I told her she would be old and gray when she died (of course, I wish with all my heart that this will be true) and she didn’t need to worry about it now.  She said she didn’t want to get gray.  I laughed and told her I really wanted her to get gray and old someday, then added that she had a long, long, long, long, long, long time before she needed to think about either of those things.  She told me she wanted to die with me, that she wanted to sit on my lap when we died and then wanted to be buried with me.  I didn’t say that hopefully I would die long before her, but instead told her that would be okay too.  She said she wanted to be buried with her favorite pink blanket, then acknowledged she would have to keep it a very long time.  I told her we would have to take good care of it. 

At Zoey’s second funeral, I watched her look closely at the casket as she walked into the room.  She didn’t ask any questions, but I could tell she remembered and knew that her great grandma was in there.  During the service she moved back and forth between her Aunts and her cousins.  To help keep the kids quiet during the ceremony we gave them crackers and candy, crayons and coloring books.  Zoey didn’t pay attention to the people that spoke, even though one of those people was me.  At the end of the service she put a rose on the casket along with the rest of us.  She didn’t get to see the process through to completion though, as she had last time, as my grandma was going to be buried in Oklahoma.  I had told her this, so she wouldn’t expect it to be the same as last time.  She had said she wanted to be there when the casket went into the ground.  She had asked several times if she could go on the airplane with my mom so she could see her buried.  She became upset each time when we told her she wouldn’t be able to go.

On the way home from the memorial she asked for a butterfly.  I told her you couldn’t find a butterfly just anywhere, but we could look for one.  She continued to ask for and eventually cry over her desire for a butterfly for what felt like hours that day.  I’m sure it was her way of connecting her great grandmother’s deaths with our beloved Princess Butterfly, as this seemed to have been a more tangible death.  While I was aware the reason for her temper tantrums likely related to this, Joe and I were going to go out of our minds if she didn’t stop asking for a damn butterfly.  The odd of us being able to find another butterfly that we could catch for her were a million to one.  Joe turned to his iPad and Amazon in an attempt to find us all some solace and found a butterfly kit.  As we are trying not to simply give this girl everything she wants all the time, right when she wants it (which is a whole other topic), we ordered it and we told her we would give it to her after she helped clean up around the house and set the table for a week.  This appeased her.  We’re waiting for the caterpillar to arrive in the mail.  Soon, Zoey will be able to watch a caterpillar wrap itself into a cocoon and turn into a butterfly.  We told her once this happened, we would let the butterfly go.  She told us firmly that she wanted to keep the butterfly until it died.  I guess we’ll have to work on that when the time comes.                      

Circles: Life and Death

        For the longest time I was proud to say that all four of my grandparents were alive, but as of January 10th all of them are now gone.  My first experience with death as an adult was with both my grandfathers, who died within a month of each other.  They never had a chance to meet my children.  Zoey and Hunter are still just at the beginning of life, but since their births the lives of both my grandmothers have ended.  The parallels between new life and the end of it are undeniable.  As Zoey and Hunter stumbled on their baby little feet as they learned to walk, my Grandma Larson began to struggle unable to stand well on her own and lost the ability to move as she once had.  As my kids learned to talk, she grew quieter, watching more than she interacted, words escaping her.  As Hunter’s teeth forced their way in, my other Grandma Lovatt’s began falling out.  As he learned new words and recognized people, she began to forget.  

When my grandfathers died I wasn’t as aware of the similarities between new life and death as I am now.  Seeing them at the end of their lives was my first true experience with death.  I didn’t have a strong connection with my maternal grandfather, but lived near him and was able to see him in the final stages of his life.  I visited him in the hospital and after he was sent home when nothing more could be done and was able to be there shortly after he died.  It was surreal to see his body there and know that he was gone from it.  No more breathing, no more heartbeat, just perpetual sleeping.  I was in the next room as the coroners took his body away.  I know that not everyone can find comfort being this close to death, watching loved ones as they go, but for some reason witnessing the end was a comfort to me.  It felt complete knowing I was seeing them for the last time.  

I had a deeper bond with my paternal grandfather.  He had struggled with his health for years and there had been many times we thought he would go, but he had prevailed.  So, it was hard to believe that it was really going to be the end, that he wouldn’t go home from the hospital this time.  When others left for the night, I was unable to make myself leave my Poppa’s side as he lay dying.  I was tired, but didn’t sleep and sat gripping his hand, telling him how much I loved him and that it was okay to let go.  More than likely this night was more of a comfort for me than it was for him.  At the time, I didn’t realize that he wouldn’t have wanted to die while I was there alone with him.  I can only hope that I was able to bring him some sort of comfort in what was to be the last night of his life.  He died the next afternoon, hours after I had returned home.  After I got the call that he was gone, I felt a huge hole in my heart knowing he was no longer in the world.  

In a way, I felt like I was a part of their moving on, their letting go of what was in this world and going on to the next.  These finals moments are blurred in my memory, whereas, I don’t see their bodies, but am more just aware of their presence.  My memories of them haven’t been tarnished by being close to them upon death, in my memories I still see them at their strongest.

After I became a mother the similarities between new life and the end of it were astounding.  I have seen both my grandparents and my newborn babies in hospitals wrapped up in blankets. Though my grandparents weren’t being monitored for growth as my kids were, but for what was no longer functioning as it should.  The circle of life that is more than just a metaphor for me now, having seen it both begin and end.  I watched my kids with wonder, as they grew into their bodies as my grandmothers were growing out of theirs.  If we are lucky enough to make it to old age, we cycle through life and return to the state in which we entered the world dependent on others to help us survive.  

In my blog, Princess Butterfly: A Poem for Grandma, there is a poem after the death of my paternal grandmother.  

On my Grandma's street

I wrote the majority of this before my last living grandparent, my maternal grandma, passed away.  She had been struggling with dementia and had of late been confused and paranoid.  I began writing this piece in large part because of her and what I had witnessed in what was to be her final month of life.  Her death on January 10th ended her month long stay in the hospital.  Zoey and I spent time with her on the Sunday before she went into the hospital.  I brought Zoey’s bike to my grandma’s house so my grandma could watch her ride it up and down her street.  She had always enjoyed watching her grandchildren, even if it had become difficult for her to recall their names.  I took pictures of Zoey that day, but regret not taking any of my Grandma.  After Zoey rode her bike we went to McDonald’s.  Zoey ate a cookie, Grandma ate a fish sandwich and I sipped my vanilla flavored coffee, then we watched Zoey play in the play area.  What I will remember most about that day was when my grandma told me with the excitement of a child that she had recently been to her mom’s house (her mom passed away at the age of 99 in 1990).  With a huge and awed smile on her face, she told me that she should take me there someday.  She had been having illusions that her own house was her mom’s house and that often it didn’t feel like her own house at all.  We returned to her house and Zoey and I sat on the floor coloring in Zoey’s Dora coloring book.  My grandma looked down at her feet, flat on the floor and said that this was her mom’s carpet.  The dementia seemed to be returning her to a time in her childhood.  During one of my many visits with her in the hospital, I heard her say, “mama” in her sleep.  I was struck by this as it reminded me of Hunter, who now calls me mama. 

Holding Zoey for the first time

There are several other moments that I will remember from the various visits I made to her in the hospital.  Her first night there, she was still mostly aware and she, my mom and I ate McDonald’s.  The last bites she would ever really be able to enjoy were of a Smore’s bar that Joe had made, that I had brought with me.  She loved sweets and I’m glad to know the last thing she ate and enjoyed was a chocolate treat.  In the weeks following she faded in and out, mostly fitfully sleeping and no longer able to talk clearly.  There were moments when she was aware of who was there and was able to recognize my mom and my uncle.  One night when I visited, the nursing staff was sitting her up and suddenly my grandma’s eyes opened.  I exclaimed, “Hi, Grandma!  It’s nice to see your eyes!  We haven’t seen them in a while,” and she had smiled.  Later that night when I left her room, I leaned over her bed, got close to her face and told her I loved her.  She said, “Love you,” back and focused her light green eyes on my face, in what I believe was to be the last time she truly knew me.

Holding Hunter for the first time

Perhaps as she imagined herself

My mom isn’t sure if my Grandma believed in Heaven and I wish I would’ve asked her about it while I had the chance.  I believe in a Heaven in which our bodies are healed and we become the way we saw ourselves in our minds.  My grandma had said she didn’t recognize herself as the person she saw in the mirror, now, I imagine that she is the way she saw herself in her mind.  I picture her smiling that large excited smile as  her mom, her dad and other relatives greet her.  I see a line of people waiting to say hello to her.  Amongst the people in line are our ancestors that she spent years researching in genealogy and she will recognize them immediately and feel at home.    

Year End: Blog In Review

     When I began this blog on June 2, 2012 I didn’t know what to expect.  I wasn’t sure if anyone would be interested, if I would have enough to write about or if it would be worthwhile to anyone other than myself.  As of today I’ve had 1,332 page views, that’s an average of 47 views per post.  As I have posted religiously every week, (except for the month I took off to write my novel), I’ve clearly had enough topics to sustain a weekly blog.  From the comments I’ve received both on and off my blog, I know that I’ve struck a chord with at least a handful of people.  And so it seems my blogging has been a successful endeavor.  

When I was struggling for a purpose and looking for a way to get into writing again, Joe suggested I start a blog.  I came up with the title Bottling Time months before succumbing to the idea of actually writing a blog.  I knew posting consistently would force me to write and what I wrote would allow me to bottle moments in time with my kids and thus I began my blogging journey.  I’m not sure how long I expected to stick with it, but am grateful I have.  I’m damn proud of myself for being able to do this amidst my full time job and helping to raise two young kids.   

Each week that I’ve been etching my parenting moments in time, I’ve gotten more personal than I had intended, but in the end think this is what people have found most interesting.  I’ve been putting my words out there in the world for others to consume and at times have felt emotionally naked, baring it all or at least most of it.  Yet, this is what writers do, be it fiction or nonfiction, we put ourselves out there with the desire for our words be read and to touch those that read them.  In being honest about my faults and fears of parenting, I’m learning more about myself.  Also, I’ve come to realize how important it is for parents to share in their parenting woes.  It’s so freaking hard to raise little people and even though it’s a blessing, we don’t talk much about just how much of a burden it can be.  In reaching out with my blog, I’ve discovered that I’m not alone in my anxiety.  I’m not the only one wringing my hands with worry and wondering if I’m doing this parenting thing right.  While I have way more questions than I have answers in examining myself I’ve been able to get new perspectives on my experiences with my kids and my role in their lives.   In both small and large ways I’m strengthening my relationships with Zoey and Hunter through my blog.  Someday I hope they will read my posts and be grateful for my words and my attempts at bottling time.              

As with most people, one of my New Year's resolutions this year is to drop some pounds, but I also intend to continue my aim to remain present with my kids and not let my anxiety tarnish the precious moments.  In the new year, I will continue blogging, but going forward will post every other week instead of once a week. This will give me more time to edit and work on my novel in an attempt to make something happen with it and doing that is also a resolution of mine.  I'm hoping there's some truth to that old saying, do what you love and the rest will follow.

If you enjoy reading my blog, take a minute to feed my writer ego.  There are a few ways you can do this: by clicking “Join this site” you can follow my blog, you can share the link on Facebook or Twitter or tell your friends about it, you can leave comments on specific posts or simply like the link on my Facebook page.  Let me know which posts you’ve liked best (or not liked) and why, so I can write more (or not) like them.  I appreciate all of you that take the time to read my words, I hope I’m making it worthwhile and you’re enriched in one way or another.  Happy New Year to all!

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