The rabbi’s quote about needing to give our kids a view of the world to navigate really clicked with me. As a Jew by Choice, I know I have much thinking to do about that. My son’s development is kind of giving me a kick in the pants with that!

Thanks again for the insightful article.

I have always been open about God and open about death. And I concur with Sarah Chana Radcliffe’s conclusion that what children tend to fear most is what will become of them should their caregivers die while they are young. When our kids have asked about our untimely, and hypothetical, death (pu-pu-pu), we have always reassured them that they will always be taken care of by other family members who love and know them.

I was recently asked (by our ill relative) about my thoughts regarding children’s attendance at a funeral. Recalling my own feelings of confusion and a lack of closure at the death of my paternal grandfather when I was six years old, I was able to tell my loved one that children grieve. And like their grown-ups, they must have the opportunity to say good-bye. Attempting (unsuccessfully) to shelter our children from the sadness we are feeling sends the message that their feelings are illegitimate. Including them send the message that people of all ages grieve and grieving together can bring its own comfort as we remember the many blessings bestowed upon us by our loved one.

As a literal-minded atheist, I believe that this is literally true (provided that for “heart” we read “that part of your mind devoted to affectionate thoughts about loved ones”, which I think is fair).

Our personalities – our selves – are not contained entirely within our own minds or bodies; a large part of who we are is defined by our relationships with others, with how other people expect us to behave, by our understanding of how other people expect us to behave; in their minds resides a model of us telling them what kind of a person we are, and our own understanding of our self reflects what we know about those models of us that reside in other people’s minds. When we decide what to do, we do so based not only on our own impulses, but on our relationships with others, and on their expectations of us.

We’ve all thought to ourselves, “What would my partner say if I asked them about this?” or “What would my mother say?” And we know that if we ask those questions, the answers really are much like the ones that that person would give; they are not necessarily the ones most convenient for us, or comfortable. That model in us of them is part of their self.

There is good neurological & psychological evidence for the physical reality of this. How we behave is very much determined by our perception of the expectations of others; and there exist structures in the brain specifically oriented towards modeling the potential actions and responses of others.

So it is true that some part of them lives on in you. It is not just a pretty turn of phrase. It is real. (In my opinion, of course.)

Anyway, a lovely article about a very difficult subject. I was obsessed with and terrified by death as a child, and it was a long way into adulthood before I came to really believe and accept my own mortality. Still further before I could say I knew how to deal with that of anyone else.

iris, thanks very much. i’d like to do another column sometime about good and bad books about death for Jewish kids — so many are problematic for one reason or another. I don’t know either of the titles you named and will definitely check them out! my own favorite for younger kids is The Story Goes On by Aileen Fisher. it’s beautiful and (to me) spiritual, but it might be too allusive and pretty for a kid who’s actively struggling with loss and anger. for a kid who’s really wrestling with those issues, i like When Dinosaurs Die by Laurie Krasny Brown…but i suspect for many kids books are only a small help with the mourning process.

I bristle when I hear this expression in conversation.
It’s even more grating when I read it, especially at the end of what started out as a thoughtful piece.