Explaining mysteries to kids

A death in the neigbourhood could become a real shock! May be it is even more shocking if the person died is close to you or known to you personally or a friend. You become speechless and your mind immobile. As the first shock wears off you see people going to the house---in ones and twos, all in silence. Suddenly, gloominess spreads even into the trees. Then the leaves might look darker and clouds heavier and closer. Those who possess the knowledge of the neighbourly death would inform the ones who don’t know----all in hush-hush. Everybody’s voice falls several notches down.

Amid this come children. They would go about noisy, as usual if it weren’t a school day, until they see grownups in silence. Many parents may face a difficult situation here. Some kids, very smaller ones indeed, may be aged 7 or so, would ask their parents: “why everybody goes to that house?” Parents would answer, “That uncle died”. Damn puzzled for a moment, the child would shoot an even bigger question. “What does die mean?” Parents are now in a tight spot as they are being challenged to define ‘death’. The indefinable mystery of life, yes. Troubled as they are, parents would switch words and phrases: ‘that means the man is no more, he is not breathing, he can’t walk”. The next kiddy doubts is: “ Why doesn’t he breath, what happened to his leg”. You would say, “His legs haven’t got any particular problem” Boom come a question from him again, “Why doesn’t he breathe?” Now answer like every parent does: “When somebody dies they don’t breath” The child stands in confusion before asking: “If I hold breathe for some time, I ‘m dead?” He would then stretch his small chest, protruding his ribcage and draw in breath and hold it. You are in doubt whether his eyes would pop out. Yes, you don’t want his facial nerves burst and yes, popped out. “Hey, stop it, damn you. Go to play now. You will know death when you become really grownup”. He would part only after shooting: “how big you want me to become before I know this?” You have no answer here.

We don’t know at what point in life do we actually know about death. To most of us, the sudden absence of an uncle, an aunt or in worst cases mother or father or a sibling and, the shocking vacuum from their disappearance, would give the painful knowledge. This happens every day in every moment everywhere. The pain and suffering from it exist in our society as cloud over our heads. Being so common, dying has become just a casual passage for most of us. Please don’t mistake it for a bad comment. Leading author J K Rowling’s novel for adult readers is titled as “Casual Vacancy”. It is about a vacancy in a town’s council following the death of its leader.

Death may be a casual vacancy to some people. It is so when it happens to others and once it comes to us it is a damn shocking stuff. Death could shatter a family, leaving many in life-long pain and suffering. So every death is important. Here is one painful moment to share with you. A folklore singer in north Malabar died sometime ago of severe heart attack. The man in his 30s wasn’t a famous singer though. But he was active in village gigs. He died leaving his wife and two kids to face the life ahead. When his body was laid for people to pay homage, many organizations placed wreaths on him. When his young son was brought to face his father’s body, he burst out: “remove all those wreaths that is why my father can’t wake up, I plead you to take them off”. We were all speechless! The numbness of it might still echo in many minds. Was the child ignorant of death? Who knows!

Knowledge of death is perhaps the greatest of all discoveries of humanity. That might have turned brute humans into philosophers. Of course, philosophy is basically linked to death: either spiritualizing it, or looking it from a material point. That means body withers away as an aftermath of biological process. However, those who search for meaning in life can’t buy this idea. They seek solutions in religion where death is a passage to another glorious existence. That is a great consolation before humanity. Elsewhere a philosopher said “to children death is a journey, they think all the dead will come back someday”. As we become grown up we know the painful reality--- “Dead people will never come back. They have left the Earth leaving no trace behind, and we raise memorials for them in the form of Taj Mahals” But to Nobel winning German author Elias Canetti there are two societies; the society of living and the society of the dead. The dead society exists in the memory of the living. As a result, each living person today will become part of the dead society someday. And the dead society will always control the living. Yes. It is obvious from the way tradition and customs continue through generations. To Shakespeare it is a sleep and forgetting, and to Sylvia Plath, the great American poet, ‘dying is an art and she will do it exceptionally well’. Eventually she committed suicide.

If death is a continuing puzzle for kids, birth is even more puzzling one. Your little one would creep up to you one day asking, “Where have I come from?” The old-time parents had a ready answer: “We got you from a stream. One day we both me and your dad saw you flowing down, and we took you home”. Perhaps you have a better answer here than this stream theory: Mostly, father would answer this “you came from God into your mom’s belly”. Most kids may find it a satisfying answer until really grow up to know things more clearly. So European society tired of these answers has begun to think about early sex education. It is still a hotly debated topic as it could go wrong. Anyway explaining both death and birth to kids isn’t as easy it might seem.

Parting shot: while writing this, the writer gets a phone call from a friend saying that our mutual friend’s wife has committed suicide. Ohhh my God!

(The views expressed are personal)