Bairbre Cahill
People grieve differently – and that applies as much to children as it does to adults. I remember when we were young teens, two of my cousins experienced a bereavement. Their reactions were polar opposites. One was loud and angry in his grief. The other was silent and withdrawn. Neither could understand the other’s reaction and so the tension between them grew until they nearly came to blows.
When my niece and nephew, Hannah and Ciarán, arrived from England for their grandad’s wake and funeral they were entering into a world of experience that was utterly new to them. Hannah, a wonderfully sassy five-year-old, had lots of questions and wanted answers.
“Tell me again,” she demanded, “which part of grandad goes to God?”
Many times during the wake Hannah decided that she wanted to see grandad again. “So this is what happens when you die, you go into a box like this?” she asked.
Ciarán, aged seven, was quieter. He enjoyed helping, carrying round plates of scones to the many visitors and seeming to take everything in his stride. When in the evenings we prayed the Rosary, both Ciarán and Hannah were determined to help with the prayers, struggling slightly to keep up with the speed of an Irish decade of the Rosary. I watched them both, cuddled up to their mum, Eithne, conscious that they were encountering faith in a particularly powerful way.
Powerful experience
The funeral was another powerful experience for them, but it was at the graveside that Ciarán’s composure finally gave way and the reality of his grandad’s death seemed to strike painfully home. In the days following the funeral, when my sister Eithne and the family had returned to England, I found myself thinking about the rich experiences my niece and nephew had encountered.
I suggested to Eithne that she might think about giving Ciarán and Hannah a notebook each, to draw pictures and write about all that had happened while they were in Ireland. I also suggested they might like to write and draw about their memories of grandad.
A few days later Eithne sent me a picture of Ciarán’s first entry in his ‘Grandad Book’. There was a wonderful picture of grandad who had now sprouted little wings and a halo and was hovering happily above the clouds. Above this Ciarán had written, “To Grandad. I hope you are alright without me. I hope you are alright in Heaven. Love Ciarán xxxx.”
Important
What touched me most about this was Ciarán’s awareness of just how important he was to his grandad, how much he was loved and his concern about how grandad would cope without him. This picture opened up an opportunity for Eithne to talk to Ciarán about how grandad could still love him from Heaven. I hope that Ciarán will hold on to this awareness throughout his life, the awareness of being deeply loved.
Hannah had done some drawing and had written a little in her book and then decided that the best possible picture she could draw about grandad would be a rainbow. She is too young to know the scripture reference in Genesis 9:13 where, after the flood, God sets a rainbow in the sky as a sign of God’s promise and yet this image that she picked is such a wonderful sign of Hannah’s intuitive understanding that all will be well and grandad is fine.
We have come a long way from the days when children were excluded from death, wakes and funerals or treated as if they didn’t understand. Children experience grief and loss too. They may not always have the vocabulary to express their feelings, but if we open up opportunities for them to explore the experience in gentle ways, their simple and profound faith can help us all to deal well with our grief.
See www.rainbowsireland.ie for information on supporting children affected by death.
