When I was 14 years old, I lost my best friend, Kara, to leukemia. We met in kindergarten and had been joined at the hip ever since. We did everything together, from playing with Barbie dolls to dressing up and making bracelets. Kara and I also experienced puberty together and the start of our teenage years. Unfortunately, right after her 14th birthday, and three days before mine, she was diagnosed with leukemia.
This was not the first time someone I loved received a cancer diagnosis. When I was 12, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, but her treatments had been successful. However, after a short, eight-month battle with leukemia, Kara passed away. I’ll never forget the morning that my father delivered the news. It was the first time I had ever seen my dad cry. A shockwave went through my body, and I had an extremely hard time processing the fact that Kara was gone. It had never occurred to me that she wouldn’t complete her treatments and rebound the same way that my mom had.
In the weeks following Kara’s celebration of life, my parents and teachers helped me cope with the loss of my best friend. For years, I kept in contact with her family and continued to visit her grave site. Since then, a year has not passed without thinking of her on her birthday or the day that she transitioned.
Death can be scary and confusing for kids. However, as adults, we know that death is a part of life. At some point, we will all experience loss. How do we prepare our children and help them cope with the loss of a loved one? Prior to losing my grandmother last month, this thought had not crossed my mind. When she passed, I was forced to deal with my own grief, while trying to comfort my mother and help my children understand that “Great-Grandma is in a better place.” Through this experience, I talked with my kids more candidly about death than I ever had before. The three things that I focused on in our conversation were the importance of having a relationship with Christ, living our lives with purpose and giving ourselves the space to grieve in our own way.
As I have mentioned many times before, my faith has been my foundation and has carried me through life’s twists and turns. When I became a mother, I prayed that God would help me instill a love of Christ in my children as well. During our conversation about death, I explained to my boys that when you choose to follow Jesus, you never truly die and that your spirit will live on with Him in heaven once you depart from your earthly body. Of course, this is an abstract concept to explain to a 10- and 6-year-old. Nonetheless, I did my best to help them understand this crucial principle of Christianity. This is not the first time that we’ve had this conversation, as my older son gave his life to Christ this past November and made the decision to get baptized. However, we dove a little deeper and I gave them space to ask any questions they wanted me to answer.
At my grandmother’s celebration of life, one of my cousins sang her favorite hymn, “May the Work I’ve Done Speak for Me.” The song says: “When I’m resting in my grave, there is nothing that can be said. May the work I’ve done speak for me! May the life I live speak for me!” These are some very profound words with an even more important message. I explained to my kids that when it’s all said and done, they will want to have lived a life that they can be proud of — more importantly, that God can be proud of. Additionally, they want to leave behind a positive legacy.
In order to do this, they must become men of integrity who fear the Lord, do what’s right even when no one is watching, and treat others with dignity and respect. They shouldn’t be consumed with what their friends are doing or what other people are saying about them. As long as they are walking in their purpose and letting the Holy Spirit guide them, they will be on the right path.
Lastly, I talked to them about processing the emotions that come with grief. I explained that when we lose someone close to us, we may experience a combination of emotions from anger to disbelief, sadness to longing and everything in between. I stressed the fact that people grieve in different ways and for different lengths of time. When someone is dealing with the death of a loved one, we should be supportive and gentle with them. If we are the ones dealing with loss, we have to be patient with ourselves and allow ourselves to feel our emotions instead of suppressing them.
Having this conversation with my kids was not easy, but it was necessary. Although we may want to, we cannot shield our kids from everything. I find that addressing things with my boys head on gives us the opportunity to engage in open dialogue and helps us create a safe space for raw and unfiltered emotion. My hope is that as my boys continue to grow and mature, they will always feel comfortable coming to me with anything. I believe forging that type of relationship with them starts right now.
I encourage parents to talk to their kids about death — do not wait until someone passes to have that difficult conversation. The more kids understand about loss, the more prepared they will be when they experience it for themselves.
Dr. Jade L. Ranger is a pharmacist at The Prescription Shoppe, a full-service pharmacy that she owns with her husband. She is mom to two boys, ages 10 and 6, and author of “Mustard Seed Mentality,” available at Amazon.com.
