How to Help a Small Child Deal with the Death of Their Friend

I am a six year old child. I am in the first grade and my friend Donna Marie does not come to class anymore. The last time she was in class she ran to the back of the room and threw up in the utility sink. I turn around and think, "what is happening to Donna Marie"? We as a class have all turned around to stare at her because her face is so white except for the bright red cheeks from heaving. I wait for the teacher to tell us everything is going to be alright. She doesn't say that though. She quietly goes to the back of the room and ushers Donna Marie out the back door and down to the nurse. I just know she is going to come back and tell us not to worry. When she does come back she has the custodian with her and he has some cleaning stuff and he just starts cleaning the sink. We all wait and when she does speak it is to tell us to open to the correct page in our readers and begin where we left off.

I walk home after the day is done and I look down the street where Donna Marie lives. There are no cars at her home. I think, ' I just played with Donna Marie a few days ago she must have a sick belly today". I think how great it is for her to be an only child because she seems to have more toys than Star Store downtown. All of her stuff is new and there are no little brothers or sisters to break off doll heads like at my house. Then I get home and my mom is cooking something that smells good and I forget about Donna Marie because I am hungry. All ten kids sit around our table at night and there is so much chatter and laughing. After supper there is lot's to do so we all get busy. Mom lays bread out from one end of the table to the other and makes sandwiches for all of us to take for lunch the next day. Dad helps out with the people that have math homework because he is really good at math. I practice spelling with my big sister and I think, " I do like having a big family because I am never lonely". I feel a little guilty about thinking how great it must be for Donna Marie because she doesn't have anyone to play with when she goes home.

A few weeks go by and I notice Donna Marie doesn't come to school anymore. I ask the teacher where she is. The teacher just bites down on her lip and thinks a minute. She then tells me we don't have time for questions because there is lot's to be done today. Did I forget about Donna Marie at that point? No, I didn't but I learned that people did not look right when I brought her up so I stopped asking. I just waited for her to come back. Everyday I looked at her desk to see if she was there.

Then as a small child often does, I lost track of how much time had passed since Donna Marie had been to school. I only remembered that it was cold when she stopped coming and it was warm when we all had to go on a long walk to the church down the street. One morning my mother said our classroom had to walk to the church that day and she would see me there. Our school was a catholic school and the church was right behind our home. The walk seemed long to a six year old but now it is just a short one to me. I asked my mother why she would be at church and why our class was going. "Are we crowning Mary again because we just did that last week, mom"? She bit her lip and I thought, "that's what the nun did when I asked about Donna Marie". Mom said that we were not crowning Mary again but that we were going to a special mass for Donna Marie.

I thought finally I would get to see her after missing her and it would be so nice. So, I walked to school with my brothers and sisters and even skipped a little. When the time was right we were told that we knew how to conduct ourselves on our walk to church and to stay in the two by two lines as usual. The sister said that the whole school was going and that we had to be on our best behavior in the church because this was a special mass. Then she bit her lip hard. This did not seem to be something to look forward to anymore. I couldn't understand why the whole school would go to a special mass for Donna Marie when she was in our class. It bothered me because she was my friend. I was going to have to share her after missing her for so long with the whole school. That did not seem fair.

The whole walk to church was different than any other walks to church. Some of the nuns were sniffling and using their hanky's a lot. I thought they had hay fever like my dad. Finally after the long walk in silence we made it to the church. We filed in and filled up the rows as instructed. No one spoke because we would get in big trouble if we did but I had so many questions. I kept straining to see far up front in case Donna Marie got the special first row. Then when the music started we all stood and were told to face the back of the church. I was going to see her for sure I just knew it! I thought this is a little bit like a wedding. Then I saw the men in the black coats. They were walking slowly and something was in the middle of them and they seemed to be gliding it along. Finally I could see something white and it looked like a pretty shiny music box but it was bigger. Then I saw Donna Marie's mother and father and they were crying and shaking walking behind the box. Frantically I started to look in the back for my own mother because something was wrong but I didn't know what. I felt scared and I would get in trouble if I ran back there to find her.

I heard the sister say, "eyes on the front children". Then the choking smoke smell came and I hated it. It was the Easter smoke and that was when Jesus died and then went to heaven. I hated the Easter smoke because it made my eyes burn and my throat hurt. It made me cry and I didn't want to cry because I couldn't explain it to the sister if she asked me why I was crying. I kept looking behind me for my mother and then I saw her. Finally, I saw her with my little brothers and sister. When I saw her I just started crying so hard I couldn't stop. The sister came over to me and I thought I was in trouble. I wasn't to my great relief. She asked me if I would feel better sitting with my family. 'Oh, yes please" was all I could get out. She lead me to my mother and I fell into her crying. "Mom, what is going on"? " What is in the box, mom?." "Where is Donna Marie"? Mom took me outside and told me that Donna Marie had been very sick with something called "lucky me a". She told me she went to heaven and that her body was in the box but not her soul. I said she didn't have anything "lucky" at all. Of course, later I learned it was leukemia. I also deep down knew the minute I saw the white box that she was in it. I just couldn't let my six year old mind go there by myself. I needed my mother to help take me there.

What I needed to know was that Donna Marie stopped coming to school because she was very ill. That the illness was more than the belly bug. That sometimes kids get sick and they do not get better. It would have been something I could understand at that age even though I was little. Mainly, because we watched our dog and our cat give birth to puppies and kittens. Mom helped us understand birth by letting us watch those natural events. Sometimes the littlest puppies would die. Mom explained that some little creatures are not born strong and they don't live. She was good with showing us that death could be a part of life. That it happens and it is sad but then life goes on. We even had burials for our dead animals. Our small shoe boxes were coffins and we put them in our yard with Popsicle stick crosses. The ritual of laying flowers on the little graves and naming them was healing. Mom was not good at talking about the death of a child.

It is hard for a parent to talk to their children about the grave illness and death of another child. As a mother myself the thought of being Donna Marie's mother and losing her only child is unfathomable. When I think of what my own mother may have been going through at that time. I recall that she almost lost one of her own daughters not too many years before. One of my older sisters at the age of seven miraculously lived through encephalitis when my parents were given no hope. That she lived and did not suffer any brain damage at all is astounding. Could my mother have wondered why God spared the life of a daughter in a family of ten children and not the daughter of a family of one child only? Perhaps, and maybe she held out for one more miracle and the sadness that it did not occur may have been too difficult for her. In any case having to learn of my friends death by watching her small coffin roll past me haunted me for a very long time.

What I remember about Donna Marie is that she had crystal clear blue eyes. They were set in beautiful porcelain white skin and they were framed by dark curly hair. She had an infectious giggle and was always smiling. As time passed I saw her mother in church quite often on Sundays. Her eyes were crystal blue and her skin was porcelain white and quite often they were brimming with tears that never quite fell. She would hold her graying curly head up and look at the ceiling. I thought it was to face heaven when she thought of her baby but now I know it is the secret to not letting tears fall. She was a beautiful lady who was dignified but perpetually sad. One particular time when I was about nine I found her sitting right behind me in church. When it was time to offer each other a sign of peace I froze solid. She put her hand on my shoulder and when I turned around I hoped she had forgotten that I used to play at her house. She took my hand in both of hers and said, "peace be with you honey". I knew by her watery eyes that she knew me. Holding back my own tears I looked down unable to speak and she lifted my chin with her hand. She looked right into my eyes and said, " it's alright".

I was absolved of the sin of living beyond the years her daughter had lived. My whole family was absolved of the injustice of having so many children when one mother had none. At that moment my own mother was absolved of not knowing how to to talk to me about Donna Marie. She didn't know how to tell me that my friend was going to die. I used my own story to talk to my children when they were very little about death. I told them about my friend and how I was so sad when she died. It opened up opportunities for questions and answers. Sometimes they would ask if I thought they might die too. Isn't that the question parents never want to answer? I would always say, "of course your going to die someday, it's part of life". It's as simple as that. Taking the shock out of it is a good jumping off point to speaking about death with your children. Keeping things honest is the key. If a pet dies don't tell them they went to a farm because they had more room to run around. Teach them that death happens and it is sad to lose a pet. If a grandparent is passing away let them be a part of saying goodbye. Help them to accept that death is a normal passage of one form of life for another. I used to tell my children that when they were in the womb that was the only life they knew for nine months. When it was time to come out they did not seem too happy. They were wet and cold and dealing with bright light for the first time. They were screaming their lungs out. I told them that I bet if they were given the choice to go back in the womb or stay outside of it at the time of birth they would have probably chosen to go back in. Usually, they would laugh and say, 'yeah, but then we could never play Nintendo or eat french fries or watch Power Rangers". See, I would tell them you never know what's on the other side of anything until you get there. That's how I would talk to them about death. We don't know what's on the other side but that doesn't mean we have to fear it.