The Killer Mens

Jacob's getting to a point where he's asking about death. I'm not sure how to handle this. For a long time I avoided it completely because I didn't want him to end up like me and fear death every day of his life. This is understandable in my situation, certainly not healthy, but easy to see where my fear came from. My dad died when I was nine and ever since I've been afraid of either my own death or the death of someone I love. So I don't really know if informing a child, unexperienced in loss, about death is automatically going to make him believe that at any time his world could end. I always assumed that the day he learned about death would be the end of his innocence. From then on Jacob would be worried about Zach leaving one day and not coming back; or me.

In talking to Jacob about death, I'm beginning to realize my perception may not be normal. It should be a simple equation: To the degree that you enjoy being alive, in the opposite direction you should fear death to an equal amount. It doesn't seem to be so for other people and this amazes me. Jacob is taking it pretty well so far. Of course he's not going to fully understand what it means to die for a long time yet, but I think he's got a pretty good start.

Last year at this time I was in the middle of my first attempt at concurrent mothering and graduate school. It didn't really work out so I was glad that I went took a class I wanted to take, rather than a class I needed to take for the program. I took 'Loss With Children and Adolescents'. It was more 'group therapy' than academic, but I really enjoyed merging my life story with what I expect will be my life's work. The class really got me thinking about how I would introduce the concept to Jacob, and I realized I'd never told Jacob about my father because I was avoiding telling him about what happened to my father. And that was just sad. I began showing him pictures and telling him his name and gradually introduced the part about him dying. I figured that if I started using the word 'death' before it could possibly mean anything to him, then maybe it would be accepted as a natural part of life when Jacob figures out what it really means. I didn't want his first knowledge of death to be the real thing, to come as a shock, and to knock him completely off his moorings. I'm kind of thinking of it in the way that adoptive parents start telling their children early on about their adoption so that by the time they figure out what it means, it is just part of who they are.

Anyway, this death stuff has all been coming up a lot recently. A few months ago an older acquaintance of Zach's passed away and there was talk of it in our household that Jacob inevitably picked up on. And then there was a week in January when there were four deaths that we knew of. I can't figure out what's been happening in the last couple weeks that's brought it to the forefront again, but Jacob's been bringing it up a lot. I finally broke down and explained it in the best three year old terms I could: "When someone dies their body stops working, but their soul - the part that makes you who you are, your thoughts and feelings - goes to a place called Heaven..." etc, etc. My understanding of all this is tenuous, and my faith in it all is shakey, so I have to be careful what I say. Two nights ago at my mom's house Jacob stuck a couple Little People into the bottom of Noah's Ark and told me that the people died.
"Ohhh...how did that happen?" I asked.
"The parents left them home, and they were gone, and the killer mens came in and KILLED THEM!"
(speechlessness).
"I put them in the doctor's (implying that he thinks they can be 'fixed'). And I put a bale of hay in there (to keep them fed?). And (putting a sheep and a cow in too) some animals to keep them company (how sweet)."

WTF?? Where did that come from? Jacob hardly ever sees commercials, and never sees the news. Any kids he is ever around I know well and I'm right there. I never used that word.

Today while I was getting ready to leave Brattleboro Jacob asked me out of the blue, "How did Gordy die?" That's my dad. I don't know when the last time we talked about him was, so I don't know where this came from, but I gave him an honest answer. It was the first time I gave him an explanation of death that didn't include the idea that people die when they are very old. Is this something I should be afraid of, or am I just crazy?

On the way home an ambulance went zooming past us and Jacob sadly wondered if "Somebody's body died." At least he's learning to be compassionate about it. And I'm hoping that somewhere along the way, in all this teaching about death, that I am able to find my own peace with it.