 Tip of the Week:
Sometimes families decide not to have a funeral or memorial gathering of any sort for someone who dies. Their mistaken thought is that it will save loved ones (including children) the grief of the difficult moments we experience when attending the memorial service of someone we love. But grief is not caused by the externals (attending the service), it is our internal reaction to the loss itself. Avoiding those feelings by not having a service only puts recovery off, leaving the griever to deal with the grief over a longer period of time. All cultures have some kind of tradition that is used to mark the passing of a life, and most often when something occurs across cultures, it is because it has a function. In the case of memorial services, it marks the end of the formal period of grief (though our individual grief goes on for a very long time) and the beginning of the adjustment phase. After the funeral, children return to school, parents struggle to return to work and to the routine activities of life. Thus, these traditions or rituals have tremendous importance. They provide a milestone and an internal shift - the turning of a corner in our process.
What some perceive as sparing children is actually so damaging for kids' recovery - it robs them of the opportunity to see all of the people who mattered to their loved one gathered in support of the family... to see the tears others have... to hear all of the stories of love or admiration... to have all of the pats and hugs and understanding looks from those who care about their plight. Having no service leaves children no beginning place for making the inevitable shift that is now somewhere further ahead of them on their journey, thus dragging out the most painful parts of the grief. And it leaves them without the knowledge of just how much support they have from others they might not have expected to reach out to them.
If a family has decided not to have a service, even after understanding that this is counter-productive for their children, you might help them consider an alternative. One family gathered together everyone who would come - co-workers of the father, extended family, neighbors, everyone was welcome. Prior to the gathering, a smaller group of just extended family had the dad's favorite meal together, and then the rest arrived for dessert. The video camera was turned on and each person took a few moments to share with the children their favorite story of the dad, or something about him that they really admired. And each person was invited to bring a small token that reminded them of the dad to give to the kids for their memory box. Many brought pictures, others brought objects of a variety of sorts, but all knew that the token (so all would fit in the box) was to be small. Another option would be to have the gathering and for everyone to be given a piece of paper - textured, maybe with a border, lightly colored works well - and each writes a note to the children about their loved one, and they're all bound into a memory book. But the gathering is critical - having the children see the faces and feel the presence of these people who care is so much more helpful than just having people mail or drop off their writing.
What youth need in the midst of losing a family member to death is to know that the loved one will live on in their hearts and in the hearts of others. In the absence of a funeral or memorial service, how will children ever have the sense of how many loved their parent? How many will be looking over them with compassion and concern? So perhaps that decision is most often made not to spare the children, but because the adults around them are not sure they can survive seeing that pain on the face of their child during a service. But children so need the affirmations that adults further out from the immediate family can provide - remember, we survive difficult times with the support of others - many others!
When you know that one of your students is about to or has suffered the loss of a family member, reach out to that family to help them find ways to mark the passing such that the children can hold forever the knowing of how beloved their loved one was to many.
Cheri
|
