An Age Appropriate Situation
(picture courtesy of Google pics)
One of the most difficult topics that comes up amongst my fellow cancer survivors and patients is “what do I say to my kids?” Almost cliche, my response, a common one, is usually “keep it age appropriate.” But what exactly does that mean… age appropriate? A 3 year-old will not understand someone is dead? Should we over load a teenager with the facts behind the passing, just because we think they can handle it (fact – a teenager’s brain is still forming into their late teens, so, no, they may not be able to handle or process someone dying on the level needed).
As an adult, no, even since I was a child, I have experienced death in various situations. I had been the child watching grown-ups around me, bawling their eyes out at a funeral service without knowng why, even not knowing the person, having just been dragged there so as not to leave me alone in the house. As a young teenager, one year in particular, I experienced the loss of several relatives. Upon high school graduation, I had already buried two classmates, and it seemed all too often, after graduation, another classmate would die, year after year.
Then, in the working world, I would experience loss, sometimes even more difficult than the death of a family member, a co-worker or friend, someone I would actually spend more time with as an adult than my own family. I understood where the joke came from, a housewife asking her husband why he was reading the obituary, his response, “to see if I have to go into work today,” referencing his own mortality, just the happen stance of being an adult.
And of course, being a cancer advocate and friend to many survivors and patients, I have experienced death more often than I ever thought I would. As it turns out, I experienced something new a couple of days ago, watching my daughter deal with someone passing, a funeral.
My daughter works a Summer seasonal job when she comes to visit me. This year marks her fourth season. And she has worked each season with several of the same co-workers. But it was one co-worker, last year, had been battling cancer. Again, the word “cancer” not something unknown to my daughter, my daughter had a high level of empathy for her co-worker and the precautions around her co-worker, to not put her at any kind of risk that would jeopardize her health any further. After all, we were and still are, dealing with Covid which has been responsible for delaying cancer treatments for so many. So my daughter, was one of the few who voluntarily wore a mask around her co-worker. My daughter was not sick, but her wearing a mask gave her co-worker peace of mind that my daughter was going to do her part to protect her.
Well, this year, as arrangments were being made for my daughter to begin her season’s work, her boss informed me, that her co-worker had recently passed. The news had been hard on all of them, and she asked if I would tell my daughter before she began work. Of course I said I would. My daughter has been aware of others who have passed, family members, but had been too young to really remember; her uncle, her grandfather, and a great grandmother. This was someone however, that she had a relationship with, year after year when she came to visit me. And like me, her co-worker shared a common bond, cancer. My daughter, knowing my example of cancer, only knows of people surviving cancer, or at least remembering (she was eight when her grandfather died of lung cancer). Now she was going to find out, not everyone does.
I actually think it was harder on me to tell my daughter, because this news was going to cause pain for her, and no parent wants their child to experience pain. Having never met the woman, my eyes began to well up as I startedt to tell my daughter. Yes, I am impacted by news of someone dying from cancer even if I never knew them. Her boss had asked me if she would want to attend the memorial service, and other than being dragged to services as a younger child, she had no experience with this, so I needed to ask her if she wanted to attend. And she expressed that she wanted to attend.
I attended the service with my daughter (she does not drive) and while funerals are generally a sad time, as my daughter listened to the eulogy, she found it difficult to be sad, with all of the wonderful things being said about her former co-worker and the way she lived her life, and the impact she made. Of course, my daughter knew many of these things about her co-worker, as she spent the last three years working with her. I told my daughter, “she really meant a lot to so many, and did so many good things. I hope people let her hear the words we heard, while she was still alive.” My daughter agreed, and said, “that is exactly who she was.”
I remember as a child being dragged to funerals and the horrors that filled my head. I was forced to “touch the hand” of the deceased by my elders, “important” to feel death and to see what we are like without “life.” Another horrible thing I was told as a child, the deceased was “sleeping.” I can remember being petrified of never waking up again. But for my daughter, something neither of us planned to experience with each other, as it was stated by the priest, my daughter was able to “celebrate” the life of her former co-worker, clearly a life to have been happy for.
Paul's Heart 