Why need we urge the little children to be mature? The conversation about death between a boy and his parents remind me of one hilarious image-telling a sprout that it would end up as a fallen leaf. Explaining death to the children is more than giving a simple lesson in life. It’s rather teaching a philosophy of almost everything that happens in our lifespan, for it relates to both the start and the end of our lives, and the process that bridges them together.
When the barriers that isolated children from the death disappears, obviously, boys and girls will know more about death. In other words, they will feel more ‘natural’ with death. They will then recognize that the death is an inevitable destiny as they have more opportunities to observe death; not only the peaceful death of their grandfather, but also unexpected and unfortunate death of their brothers and sisters. Aging and disease are common causes of death, but on the other hand, we discover our people we know dying from accident, crime, or even worse, suicide. Contemplation on death is a holistic comprehension on lives of other people, and explaining why the deceased is lying inside the coffin is just a portion of broad comprehension. If such is the case, then can parents provide sufficient explanation, or more or less, justification about an individual’s unfortunate death? In the talk of death, parents bear one definite responsibility: they have to explain about ‘the society’ to their vulnerable children, about both its bright and dark sides. Whether the children would get the benefit from such conversations or would fall into endless nihilism is another question. Considering that many parents rely highly on religious interpretations to understand the individual’s death, such education won’t contribute to the establishment of child’s personal perspective.
In the Asian viewpoint, the funeral is not the symbol of morbidity. The funeral is rather a sacred ceremony. It is a ceremony in which people gather, bless the deceased, and commemorate the life of their beloved one. To understand the process, one should be aware of ‘suffering’, one should be aware of ‘passion’, and one should be aware of ‘felicity’. These are life lessons that mold empathy -that no children do possess- among the participants of the funeral. Such life lessons are the precipitation of personal experiences, thus no other adults can teach children about them. For parents never explained about the disappearance of his grandpa, a boy may have nightmares, and suffer from obsessed guilt, but such are all the process they should go through. If people do not fear death, why should they fear childhood trauma? Without those gradual understanding, one’s definition of death imposed by his parents, is just an empty philosophy.
Even if the parents are eager to tell their children about the death, what are they going to tell their children? Many family care organizations are suggesting ‘not to-do lists’ for parents, but none is mentioning ‘to-do lists’ for parents. This evinces one universal truth-that no one knows the truth on death. Thus in many cases, many parents try to offer pleasurable yet arbitrary explanations for death-a religion. Religious interpretations are appealing alternative to answer such complicated questions, and many parents teach their children the same story Jesus Christ preached to his students. Parents’ religious belief is not the subject of criticism, but their attempts to pass on their faith to naive children certainly are. Children have rights to fulfill their own obligations, and as human being, they even have responsibility to do so. Teaching them mature interpretations may help them, but at the same time, it will deprive of opportunities to establish their own perspective. Without building blocks, one’s comprehension can never be conclusive, and ‘immature’ philosophy of death would easily be shattered and splintered like a pile of glasses.
To understand a fallen leaf, a seed should endure the minutes of windstorm, the vernal breeze of spring, and the moments of aging. Perhaps, the only and first moment when one can finally understand the death may be the moment one falls off from the bough, the moment one’s body touches the cold ground blanketed in snow. From the start of the human civilization, the grown-ups isolated children from the deceased, and seeds had no chances to see the fallen leaves. That is not because people feared the death, but because they respected the humanity of the deceased, and furthermore respected the innocence of their children.
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