The Child's Corner — How Grief Affects the Child

Glory to You, my Lord, You who subdue Your servant by taking back the life You had deposited in him. We do not ask You to desist from this act of Yours—for there is no turning back Your decree—but for patience and consolation...

Death is a mystery that the cultured human mind is powerless to understand; can its meaning for the child, then, be anything more than that the eyes which used to see have lost their light, and that the tongue which used to flow with speech has been struck dumb?

Your child comes to you, Madam, and asks you, for instance: Where is my grandmother, who used to bring us toys and sweets? You must acquaint him with the truth of the matter by telling him that she has passed to a world other than our world, where we can no longer see her, but that we can feel her presence among us by keeping up the affection of her friends and by doing deeds she used to favor. And beware, Madam, of fabricating stories with no truth in them—such as saying, for instance, "Your grandmother is away from us for a time," and other such innocent inventions which sound science counsels us to discard.

There is also a mistaken notion that must be fought, and that is making your child feel that he is the cause of the departed one's death—as when you tell him, "Your grandmother died from all your annoying of her with your unsatisfactory behavior." If our ladies realized the great harm such phrases leave upon their children's souls, they would strike them from their personal lexicons.

And since your faculties, Madam, are not strong enough to bear grave misfortunes, sound science excuses your weeping in your child's presence in order to give vent to your pent-up feeling—for your pent-up feeling weakens your endurance under it and brings you close to "nerves." Nor let it slip from your mind that an exaggerated expression of grief—tearing at your hair, for example—makes your child imagine death as more dreadful than it really is. So try, by grace of the calm nature the Creator, exalted be He, has bestowed upon you, to lighten the weight of grief upon yourself. If the departed one, God rest her, was your mother, for instance, and died of an incurable disease that had seized her, then your comfort is that she has passed from torment, and from an illness beyond which there is no recovery, to an eternal rest. Compare this misfortune of yours with the misfortune of bereaved mothers, and of widows who are still in the age of roses, and of women grieving over their only daughters. Let it suffice you that your dear departed found on her day those who gave freely of their tears, sharing your grief with you—while there are so many young men who fall on the fields of war, of whom their mothers know nothing but the news of their death.

My God, make us accept Your decree with beautiful patience, and make every heart a consoler to the sorrowful.