Dealing with a child’s grief
A sad amendment to the notes I wrote about Elizabeth’s second teacher change. We found out last week that her teacher, Mr. Cowart, had been in the hospital with a very serious case of pneumonia since his leave of absence. We also learned that he had battled cancer in the past and that it may have come out of remission.
Today, Elizabeth brought a note home from school saying that Mr. Cowart died this morning. Ugh! I felt terrible for thinking that he had flaked out by leaving the class in the middle of the year. Elizabeth said that the school counselors had spent the afternoon in her class, talking with the kids about Mr. Cowart and helping them make cards for his family. I thought that was a good way to help them deal, at least as a class.
When Elizabeth showed me the note, she said, “I don’t want to talk about it.” Later, though, she cried and said, “Why do all these people I know have to die!” As far as I know, the only other person she has known that died was her grandmother, and that was before she was old enough to remember. Still, she has a lot of unresolved feelings about that, including the fact that she doesn’t remember her grandmother.
My mom said she was going to send me some things about helping a child deal with grief, but right now I’m kind of at a loss. I guess the best way to handle it is to just let her talk about it when she wants to.
Filed under: Elizabeth, grief, kids, parenting, school on October 1st, 2008
Jennifer,
First, I love to read your blogs. You are so good at making them entertaining and giving insight to so many issues.
My grandmother was giving one of my girls a kiss goodbye one afternoon when she fell (the Dr said her hip snapped and caused the fall). The girls were in pre-school. We had to call the ambulance… and she died within a month… never going home again.
We talked about how happy Mimi was to be in heaven with God… that she was looking down at us and smiling every time she saw them laugh and do sweet things. They would say they wanted to swing high enough to touch the sky… so they could see Mimi… It made them feel that she was still theirs.
Keep up the good work!! ~ Melinda
Thank you, Melinda. That is a sweet way for the girls to remember their grandmother.
I’m a little hesitant to say anything about Mr. Cowart being in heaven, because I didn’t know him well enough to know if he was a believer (unfortunately). I’ve tried to stick with praying for his family and talking about how nice he was and how glad Elizabeth was to have him for a teacher for a short time. I wish I knew he was in heaven. I actually feel a little guilty that I never found out whether or not he was a believer.