Accidents can happen. Death,natural and unnatural, does happen. There are unpredictable twists and turns. Things happen, stun you into shock. As a mother, father, parent, you want your child to be robust, resilient and to have a good life, as much as possible. But. Of course.Stuff happens that you cannot stop or shield them from. And when such stuff happens it’s best not to put whatever it is into the shadows. In today’s world in the UK there are significant messages getting out about the importance of recognising and affirming pain, struggle, loss – being as they are parts of the fabric of this imperfect life. If our children are shielded from such truths, and yet they patently see it all around them, how confusing that must be. A constant sense of mismatch, things not adding up. Circles being squared.
When my father died my son was 6 years old. I remember the conversations about whether or not he should go to the funeral and the burial; the worry that it would be too awful for him to witness upset and grief, to see the coffin, watch it being lowered into the ground. His grandpa being buried. And the grim surrounds of the graveyard. I remember the minister being wonderful, he asked if my son had ‘soft shoes’ he could wear so that during the funeral service if he wanted he could run around ( he was a very running-around type child too). He agreed with us- the parents – that our son should go to the funeral, but we were met with some family opposition, thinking it ‘inappropriate’. But it was not. It was the best thing. During the burial ceremony, my son spent some of the time running around the graveyard, with his dad’s grandma firmly in tow, exploring the gravestones that held their own life and death stories in their inscriptions. He shared in the grief and launched himself into other escapades at the same time, as children do. But fundamentally he was lucky in his world of love-safety and stability holding him in that moment of losing a loved one. When he got home, the day after the funeral, he spontaneously started to play ‘the funeral game’; this involved his toy animals ( of which there were many) going to various funerals – going through the service, burials complete with ‘ashes to ashes/dust to dust ‘ – all this unprompted by those around him, all from memory – a game inspired by an experience that touched deep and emerged in his play time. We were blown away by this response.
When he was 12 my mother died and again he was very much part of the ritual process. I have no regrets and I am very glad he was never ‘shielded’ at such rite-of-passage times. Tragically, when he was 14, he experienced loss from suicide of a school friend. That was different again and harrowing territory. It is hard when you cannot ‘fix’ and restore , it is hard when the brutality of life and death intervenes to remind you of the arbitrariness of when pain and loss can hit your child. In this experience I saw how important some figures outside of family can be, when your child has a gruelling experience to process. For my son this came in the form of the most magnificent volunteer musician. Every week he would go to the school and run a jazz band that my son was a part of, as indeed was his friend who committed suicide. What this wonderful musician inspired them to do in the event of this horrendous death was to compose a piece of music to dedicate to their friend. They did. I really believe my son learned, even more profoundly than he knew before, that music is a tremendous source of catharsis, solace, consolation,spirit and in some strange ways therefore a big source of hope in the beauty and joy of life it kindles, even at its most grim. And I am so thankful for that.
There have been other untimely deaths in my son’s life since then. Life is tough. Even tougher when as a parent you watch as these blows hit your child. You wish you could somehow throw yourself in front to soften the blows at times. But you can’t. You have to let time heal and enable the process of sadness, mourning, to take its toll and then move on.
And then. So very sadly. Recently. Our dearly loved cat of twelve years died an untimely and brutal death through poisoning – picked up from somewhere outside. It was upsetting to behold. She was very much a part of our family life, she had travelled with us from Brighton to Manchester and moved with us to the various houses – quite a number! – until we finally settled a few years ago. She has been a constant, spritely, beady eyed, alert, beautiful companion for us all, but especially for my son. Her death followed a few days on from a terrible death of someone my son had known and been friends with – but lost touch with this past year, nevertheless shocking news. Death back again. Unlucky? Yes – but this is how life plays sometimes. Our spritely cat who had been happy as anything in the morning was dead by 8pm that evening. My instinct was to shield my son as much as possible given other recent events. He carried her, holding her with such love and tenderness as she struggled to breathe, as we took her to the vets. He knew how ill she was. In the event of telling him later that evening that she had died, I suggested we leave her at the vets to be cremated. I thought this a good option in the circumstance. It would bring a distance from the whole thing, less fuss and ‘bother’ – there was so much else going on for my son.
What followed is testament to him, but I also think testament to us, his parents, and the way we have brought him up. After some consultation, our son insisted that we brought her home, he wanted us to bury her in our garden. And so he spent 4 hours digging a 4′ grave for her. We then had a further discussion about whether or not we let our other cat ( her son) see her dead. Again, I didn’t want us to go through the upset of bringing our poor dead cat out of her box, to lie her out for her son to register she was dead. But in the end together we worked it through and I was swayed to agree that this was the right thing to do. And please know that it was. She was gently laid out on the kitchen floor, I brought our other cat in – we sat with her, she still looked so beautiful, and we shared our sorrow, stroking her goodbye. Her son sniffed about, didn’t seem too interested. But it was the right thing to do. We then buried her and afterwards stood by her grave and drank a toast of champagne to celebrate her life. Because she has been a part of the spirit and everyday of our family, this ritual was thoroughly right. As my son said, this is why we have rituals. It’s part of being and feeling connected to our world and our lives.
So my son has taught me a lesson. Reminded me what in my panic as a mother I – briefly -chose to ignore. Distance, detachment, separation – does not help when it comes to loss. It’s good to feel and physically go through a process of saying goodbye, paying your respects and expressing your love and sorrow as you so do. Rituals matter.
Finally, the solace of music resonates in our house as my son intermittently can be heard on the piano singing hauntingly soulful songs, The River by Leon Bridges sung like an ancient spiritual; An Ending, a Beginning by Dustin O’Halloran or I will hear him play with uplifting musicality improvised extended bluesy jazz pieces. My own to add is ‘Into the Mystic’ , Van Morrison. Such consolation that music brings is priceless as we move on.
The Education Curiosity Shop 