Tag Archives: death

Crowdsourcing parenting tips

Posted on by under kindergarten, storytelling

Yesterday marked a year since my grandma died.  After she died, we talked with Lucy about how we keep dead people in our lives by remembering them, telling stories about them, looking at pictures of them, and sometimes seeing them in our dreams.  Lucy was a big fan of her great-grandma.  We took a vacation with my grandma when Lucy was 2 years old — an adventure in balancing the quick (Lucy constantly running) and the slow (grandma) — and Lucy loved the undivided attention that my grandma always devoted to her.

Lucy near her great-grandma's grave in Hopewell, Oregon (March 2009)

After Martin Luther King day this year, Lucy talked about death and how we communicate with and remember dead people.  She wanted to know why a dead person’s birthday is celebrated (MLK) if the dead person isn’t around to eat cake and blow out candles.  Then she wanted to know if we could celebrate her great-grandma’s birthday (since we celebrate MLK’s birthday) and asked if she could send her a letter telling her that she loves her and misses her.  I was stumped — have her write a letter and send it to the cemetary?

I asked for suggestions on Twitter and Facebook (because everyone knows that the answer to any question is on the internet).  I got some great ideas from my brilliant friends (who I didn’t identify here to protect privacy, but if anyone wants attribution for their idea, just poke/ping me):

  • Write the letter and save it. I kept a journal as a kid to keep my neighbor up to date when he died suddenly.
  • Since she’s already felt it in her heart, she’s already sent it
  • The cemetery might work, and you can call first and let them know it’s coming so it wouldn’t be returned to sender. If Lucy’s already ok with the concept that greatgrandma is “dead”, you could address it to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_letter_office
  • Maybe you could say that when her greatgrandma died, her body went away but she’s still around in spirit because of how much she loved her family, kind of like how Lucy can feel your love for her even if you’re not in the same room. Since she doesn’t get mail any more, the way to send her a letter is to write it out and then burn it and when the smoke rises up, Lucy’s message will be carried to that place where her greatgrandma can read it.
  • 1. Mail it to her with no return address. Greatgrandma c/o The AFTERLIFE 2. Go to the beach or some place special and read the letter out loud to her and then burn it or bury it
  • Be pragmatic and tell her the truth — that life is without meaning and there is no point in anything…just kidding :-)
  • Oh Lucy I wish we could write to the dead but they are gone so they cannot get mail, but we can always keep them in our thoughts and deeds, like Dr King. And in a way they are always with us.
  • Ask her if she remembers what it was like before she was born. Tell her that’s where Grandma is.
  • I like the idea of her writing an actual letter. Maybe you could find a place meaningful to share it? My mom and stepdad have two trees (one for his mother, one for one of his daughters) and my mom has a birdbath as their spots. Maybe Lucy can find something that becomes a sharing spot and a box she/you can make that is her mailbox. That way, she can write the letter, she knows her grandmother won’t literally receive it, but if she can symbolically send it.
  • I also like the idea of her writing the letter. But I’d hold onto it in case she wants to see it later. No point lying about doing that either. Perhaps you can say “You should write the letter and when you are happy with the words, we’ll put it in a special place and if the letter can get to her, it will. Someday you can go back and look at them too. The important thing is what you want to say and how you feel because even if your great grandma gets the letter, she can’t just write back.”
  • It’s a lovely idea to write the letter and then save it for her to read later. If she really wants to send it……then I guess you have to be honest and tell her that nobody really knows where people go after they die. It’s one of the great mysteries of life.

As of today the letter hasn’t been written and she hasn’t brought it up again, but Lucy remembers everything and I know she’ll ask about it again soon.

I get the best advice from the internet.

Look at this!

Posted on by under fog, storytelling

I’m not the person in our family who usually has insomnia – that’s my wife.  But for the past few weeks I’ve been awake in the wee hours of the morning.  I wake up with the task of my dream still at hand.

One early morning I was dreaming that I was trying to clean ants out of our house (those hardworking persistent non-native San Francisco ants that we haven’t had in our house in years, but I still fear their return) and I woke up and went to look for a sponge to use to wipe/clean them up.

This morning it was 4:10am when I woke up convinced that I was holding a mouse I had just found and I needed to find a box for it.  I could feel the tiny scared animal’s heart beating in my fingers and I could see the nest of paper bits it had made in a corner of the room. I put my glasses on and realized there was no mouse.  I’d seen a tiny mouse on our patio a few days ago.  Now it’s in my dream house.

Since it was just after 4am and we try to all get up around 7am on weekday mornings I decided to stay awake and get things done.  I started to make lunch for Lucy’s school lunchbox but I was pacing around and being too noisy.  I decided to sit. in. one. place. and look over our 2008 Christmas card address spreadsheet and make updates for 2009.  I was anticipating updating addresses of friends who have moved and adding addresses for some new friends.

Then I saw a line in the spreadsheet with my grandma’s name and address.  I was casually organizing the list and thought, “she’s not around anymore, so remove the row,” and then I just fell apart dripping big huge tears all over the cat and the laptop keyboard.

Since she died in March I have grieved her loss the most when I think of calling her or sending her a letter or visiting her or telling her about something.  When Lucy’s official Kindergarten portrait was delivered, I wanted to send one to my grandma because I knew she would love it.  When Lucy announced that she wants to be a “bug scientist” when she grows up, I wanted to tell my grandma because she loved to encourage women to be scientists.  When I have an interesting project at work I like to write to my grandma about it because I know she likes to hear about it.

She was my “look at this!” go-to person who would almost always respond with love and support and attention. I always wanted to show her things or share things with her and I always wanted to impress her.

I have a file drawer full of photos from her collection and I’ve been scanning them and hope to create and print a book of her photos for my siblings and parents. One of my favorites was probably taken while she was at Wesleyan in the late 1920′s or early 1930′s – such dashing women:

Harriet, Queenie, Evelyn, Margaret, Frances - early 1930's or late 1920's