As she leads me through the design part of the process, she finally decides to open the package so I can see how one of the bracelets looks in its finished form. “You can put a word or name in the center if you have enough letters,” she says, and I see that she has put the letters, “hamster” on the bracelet. “I wrote a note too,” she adds. “It’s from the hamster, about how he will always be with her whenever she remembers him.”
It took me awhile to process this exchange. I know there are still people who feel that children need to be sheltered from death and the processes of grieving. But maybe we should be paying more attention to what young people may already know. I thought about how confused and uncertain adults can be when they hear that a friend has lost a loved one; a relative, a beloved pet? What’s the right thing to say? What can I do to offer comfort, to communicate that I care?
Seeing what Kyra has come up with for her friend confirms that empathy and creative imagination related to the art of grieving are possible at a fairly young age. Somehow Kyra knows what to do, and I wonder how she learned it. Perhaps it’s because there is a place in the yard of her mother’s house where pets are buried, and each of those burials were carried out in a somewhat elaborate respectful ceremony. Perhaps it’s because she was involved in assisting her mother in caring for her grandmother as Grandma Pat was coming to the end of her life. Perhaps it’s because she and I and my sister grandmother sang songs together when she was ill, and we promised that we’d keep singing them after she was gone as a way to always remember her. Perhaps it’s because she was in the room when Grandma Pat crossed over into larger life several years ago, and reminders of her are sprinkled throughout many present-day conversations. Every now and then, someone will say something, and in the tone of their voice, or the syntax of their message, or in their gesture or facial expression–it will seem as though Grandma Pat has just entered the room. And perhaps, it’s like the hamster told Kyra’s friend, “she’s with us whenever we remember her.”
