Bebi
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Childrens fears on deathI was watching Billy Connelly last night and something he mentioned stuck in my mind. He was discussing cemeteries and pointed out that it’s the living who we should fear, not the dead (something I’ve always said myself lol). He also mentioned in passing that a lot of headstones say that the deceased is “Asleep” and this got me thinking. I know this is a common reason given to children when a relative dies – “Granddad has gone to sleep” – so is it any wonder that a child’s mind would associate this with the fact that “granddad” could wake up one day?
I’ve always been honest with my children about death, and they (like me) love wandering around cemeteries on a nice sunny day looking at the headstones and discussing what that person could have been like in life. One day, however, my daughter suddenly decided that cemeteries are full of zombies. I asked her what made her think that and she told me that the dead people were asleep and would wake up if we were too noisy. Also, around this time, she became very nervous about going to sleep at night in case she woke up buried in a cemetery as a zombie. It took a lot of time and effort to allay her fears, and I eventually found out that an older relative (on my ex-husband’s side) had been telling her that you shouldn’t walk around in a cemetery in case the “zombies got you”. Personally I find it shocking that she was told this by someone who really should know better…
On a lighter note, when Ashleigh was about 3 years old we were travelling past a cemetery which had a bonfire in progress. She pointed out of the window and said "oh look they're having a barbeque!" Bless her LOL
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FrankBlunt
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I suppose it may be more comforting to those nervous about or fearful of death to declare, "May he rest in peace", in lieu of, "Fly about, enter people's dreams, or reincarnate...Hey, whatever he wants to do is fine by me."
Was that the eternal flame your daughter saw at the cemetery? While I knew of cremation at a young age, I knew not of crematoriums, so I, too, perceived it as a barbecue of sorts. 
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Bebi
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While my children were here for their holidays, we had a morning out walking around the local church. They’ve both become really attached to it, the views across the hills are amazing and it’s so peaceful. During our visit Ashleigh started asking her “zombie” questions. I reassured her that zombies are just things in films and that they won’t suddenly appear out of a grave if she got too close (bless her). Then the conversation turned to the children’s late granddad (their father’s father, he passed away a couple of years ago). Anthony misses him terribly and started to get a little upset. I explained to him that it’s not a bad thing to get upset, it’s natural to miss his granddad, and if he feels that way to just think about the happy things he and his granddad did together then he’ll start feeling better. I told him that if he thinks of his granddad often then he won’t miss him as much because he’ll already be “there” in his thoughts. I can’t remember exactly how the conversation swung round to this, but Anthony wanted to know the difference between the part of you that dies and the part that goes to heaven, and what heaven is etc. I try my best when talking with the children to keep it as simple as possible, so I explained that the part that lives on is the part of you that dreams, which they found easy enough to picture. As for heaven, I simply said that different people have different views on this, and I’m sure they’ve heard of people saying heaven is in the sky. I asked them what they thought would happen to people’s souls. Ashleigh said she thought that they’d fly around like birds, and Anthony (after thinking hard for a few minutes while I listened to Ashleigh imagining what it’d be like to be a bird) came up with a very surprising answer for a 9 year old. He said that he’d like to think that when he dreamed of granddad, he was actually meeting up with him, and that when he thought of himself and his granddad that granddad would know he was thinking about him and be happy too. I asked Anthony if that would make him happy to believe that and he said yes, so I said that if something made sense to him and made him happy then it was the right belief for him. Sometimes Anthony amazes me with the way he thinks, he’s a very grown up little lad *smiles* Another good sign was Ashleigh standing on a grave to read an inscription, she’s finally getting over her zombie fears, although she now has an obsession with reading every inscription she comes across lol
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Bebi
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I saw my first dead body today. Andy's dad passed away last Thursday (the funeral's Friday) and we went to the chapel of rest to view him this afternoon. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it wasn't as bad as I'd imagined. He looked very peaceful.
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