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Malka
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04-09-2014, 04:18 PM
I thank you, Leslie, for starting this thread. All children are different, the same as all adults are different, and if we acknowledge that not ever adult will cope with the death of a close one - two- or four-legged then we have to acknowledge the same for our children.

I honestly think that I was lucky in that I was able to explain things to my then very young children because tragically their beloved Grandpa - my Father z"l had been sick from even before my daughter was born [renal failure] and in hospital for nine months before he died - so my son actually really knew him as a person in a hospital bed. But Father adored my daughter - not his first grandchild but somehow she was special to him - maybe because she was so poorly her first year and then was in the Orthopaedic hospital having major hip surgery from 13 months - not sure.

But sometimes, during his last years, he used to say that he was only able to keep going because of Abigail.

A little story to finish my post. I had a camera which only took black and white photographs [it was a long time ago] and I had a friend who owned a Graphic Design company who would take the films and get them developed and printed for me.

Well, he had a roll of films - photographs I had taken, took them to where his own pictures were done - and that place had a flood. Some months later they found that roll of film of mine, developed it and printed all the photographs.

And Ken telephoned me two days after Father had died and told me that he had the photographs and would it be insensitive to bring them round.

They were the last photographs ever taken of my Father and there was one where he was sitting in a deckchair in their back garden and Abigail was on his lap, and he was looking at her with such a look of utter love on his face... I am not sure how old she was although there was another photograph with her and Daniel and he was only just standing.

And it was only when Ken brought the photographs round that I realised how ill Father had been even though he had had to retire from work age 58 due to ill health. He was only 63 when he died.

But really the children never knew their beloved Grandpa as anything but ill, so maybe it was easier for them to accept what I said, both before he died and when he did?

Maybe it was that, or maybe it was the things I said and how I worded them. Or maybe it was just right for them.

I will never know.
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Meg
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04-09-2014, 05:05 PM
My son was a baby when I lost Bunny and about 7 when Tilly died on the operating table with pyometra.

He had lost his father the year before. I had always been honest with him and told him that his father had 'died' and that dying meant 'someone' had gone forever and would never see them again. I told him that made me feel very sad and that it was ok to feel sad and to cry. We hugged each other and cried until there were no tears left to cry. He also attended his fathers funeral to say goodbye for the last time.
I did something similar when Tilly died .

When he had grown up my son told me he was glad I had been honest with him and explained things also that he was 'included' and not made to feel on the outside when sad things happened.
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Malka
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04-09-2014, 06:13 PM
That is just it Meg. Being honest and open with your son about his father's death.

Many people can not cope or do not understand how to explain death to children. I did it my way and you did it your way, and just as it was right for my children, young as they were, the way I told them, it was right for your son the way you told him about his father. And then Tilly.

There is no one size fits all.
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Florence
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05-09-2014, 08:00 AM
I think it depends how comfortable you are with death and your own mortality.
When I was a child, we had hamsters, guinea pigs and cats. Of course they all died at some point and we always buried them in our garden together. It was very natural and easy for me to understand because it's part of life and we all have to face it. I think if you can learn about death at an earlier age you'll be more comfortable with it later in life.
If I had kids and someone or a pet died, I would explain to them what happens. It's the flow of nature, everybody has to die at some point, turn to earth so other creatures can live. Dying shouldn't be a scary thing because it's not painful (more so it ends the pain of life if you're injured or ill). And when you die, your soul dissolves and comes together with all the other souls in the universe (I find this a bit less unsettling that saying you simply cease to exist). You turn back into what you were before you were born: stardust and energy.
I personally wouldn't want to make up a story like the cat ran away or went to live on a farm. Personally, this would have upset me a million times more than knowing they died (I would have worried that the cat was lost somewhere and I wasn't out looking for her etc.)
So yeah, this is my approach.
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Moobli
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20-09-2014, 08:47 PM
I am another who thinks honesty is the best policy for my own child. My son has been brought up on a farm so has witnessed death perhaps more than your average child, but he is also sensitive and so I have explained to him when a beloved dog (or his pet lamb for example) had to be pts or died they have gone to heaven (not that I am religious) and that they won't be coming back. It has worked for us.
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