Archive for the ‘Talking with Children’ Category

Coping with Death over the Holidays

Monday, December 21st, 2009

snowtombstoneResearching family history forces me to review ancestral deaths and reasons behind those deaths. I never ceased to be amazed at the number of individuals who die over the holidays. While some die from accidents, other deaths are caused by weather, old age and — yes — stress.

It seems that I am not alone in worrying about relatives who travel or other relations who have health problems and their fates over the holidays. Articles about how to cope with death during the holidays abound. In an effort to bring some great advice and news about how to deal with holiday deaths, we chose ten of the best articles to share here. The articles are listed in alphabetical order:

  1. Anniversary of Mom’s death is during the holidays: One year after her mother’s death, Gayle Peterson talks about her feelings.
  2. Coping With Death During The Holidays: Carolyn Zellander talks about her relatives who died during the holidays and how she coped with the losses.
  3. Father’s death brings pain during the holiday season: A reader asks how to deal with a father’s expected death, one that occured during Thanksgiving weekend.
  4. Getting Through the Holidays: Angela Morrow offers some advice on how to get through the holidays after losing a loved one.
  5. Grief: Coping with reminders after a loss: The Mayo Clinic staff provides an insightful article on grief and grieving, and how to cope with the feelings triggered by holiday reminders.
  6. Helping Children of Different Ages Cope with a Death: A different perspective from a Jewish Web site that pertains to anyone who wants to help children cope with death and loss.
  7. Holidays After the Death of a Loved One: Learn how to cope with upcoming holidays after you lose a loved one during the holiday season.
  8. Important and Helpful Tips For Managing the Holidays For the Bereaved: Gloria Lintermans provides a list of helpful hints for those who are grieving during the holidays.
  9. Prof: Tips to help those grieving during holidays about death, money: Purdue University provides an article that talks about loss in general, including information for those who have lost a job.
  10. You Can Make It Through the Holidays: A short introduction to a link that offers a variety of ways to cope with grief during the holidays.

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Public Opinion Polls and End-of-Life Decisions

Sunday, October 4th, 2009
A living will is part and parcel of estate planning.

A living will is part and parcel of estate planning.

Have you thought more about end-of-life decisions since the recent debate over health care? While some individuals claim that the health care bill (or variations of that bill) carry information about ‘death panels,’ you can rest assured that this term is not used in any terminology. In fact, even some Republican leaders have debunked that myth, as end-of-life decisions also include how to prolong life as well as when the individual – not the government – wants that life to end. Additionally, according to some public opinion polls, Americans overwhelmingly support an individual’s right to decide whether he or she wants to be kept alive through medical treatment.

The Pew Research Center released some figures in August that reveal how some Americans felt about end-of-life decisions even before the health care debate began. Here are some highlights:

  • In a 2005 Pew Research Center survey, 84 percent said they approved of laws which say medical treatment that is keeping a terminally ill patient alive can be stopped if that is what the patient desires. In addition, 70 percent said there are some circumstances when a patient should be allowed to die, while 22 percent said doctors and nurses should always do everything possible to save the life of a patient.
  • In the same Pew Research survey a narrow majority (53 percent) said if they were faced with a terminal illness and were suffering a great deal of physical pain they would choose to stop medical treatment, 34 percent said they would ask their doctor to do everything possible to save their life.
  • In that same survey, older adults are more likely to have discussed their [living] will and what to do with family belongings than they are to have discussed end-of-life medical decisions (76 percent have discussed their will with their children). The elderly usually are the ones to initiate a discussion about end-of-life decisions with their children rather than the other way around. With that said, white adults with parents age 65 or older are more likely than black or Hispanic adults with aging parents to have discussed this issue.
  • On the other hand, perceptions are difficult to fathom. This survey showed that, “while a narrow majority of adults (52 percent) who have discussed these topics with their parents say it was their parents who initiated the conversations, fully a quarter say they themselves brought up these topics. In this way their perceptions differ from the older adults surveyed, most of whom say they are the ones to bring up these sometimes delicate subjects.”
  • Younger people tend to think about making a living will, but often do not carry that thought into action.

The article states:

One way to insure that an individual’s desires about end-of-life medical care are carried out is to put them in writing. Nearly all Americans know what a “living will” is, and most have given at least some thought to their own wishes regarding medical treatment at the end of their life. In the 2005 Pew Research survey, 35 percent said they’ve given this a great deal of thought and 36 percent said they’ve given it some thought. Even so, only 27 percent said they have put their wishes in writing and 29 percent said they have a living will. Though, this represented a significant increase from 1990 when even fewer — 12 percent — had some sort of living will. Not surprisingly, older people are more likely than young people to have thought about these issues and to have formalized their wishes. Half of those ages 65 and older (51 percent) say their wishes for medical treatment are written down and 54 percent say they have a living will.

So, despite the knowledge that people can take control over end-of-life decisions, few have practiced their right to do so. This lack of directive for life or death leaves your fate in the hands of others. Learn more about living wills at What is a Living Will?

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Posted in Death & Dying, Death Care News, Death Practices, Other Legal Matters, Talking with Children, Wills & Estate Planning | No Comments »

Non-Traditional Kids and Your Will

Monday, August 24th, 2009
Adopted family of Mr. Clark Griffith 1925.

Adopted family of Mr. Clark Griffith 1925.

If you are making a will, or if you made one so long ago that you don’t remember what it contains, you may want to change that will to reflect your current conditions both financially and in the growth or diminishing rate of your family. If your family has grown, you may have included what are known as “nontraditional” children. These children would include children from previous marriages, adopted children and even illegitimate children. How can you provide for them in your will if you desire?

In most states, adopted children are treated as equals to your blood-related children unless you indicate otherwise in your will. To avoid problems, you might specify in your will that words such as “child,” “children,” “sons,” or “daughters” include (or exclude) any adopted children. If you simply state in your will that gifts will got to your children, without indicating which children, children from all your marriages may be included with that terminology.

If you marry someone with children from a previous marriage and you do not formally adopt these stepchildren as your own, they may not be included in your bequest to your children unless you specify this information. If you’re a male, most states may consider a bequest to children to include only legitimate children. In the case of a mother, a bequest to children usually may include illegitimate children.

Additionally, if you leave bequests to your beneficiaries’ children, the same rules would determine who is and who is not included in your request.

You may not like to think about what would happen to your children if you and/or your spouse or partner would die, you should construct your estate plans to account for that possibility. You can use a guardianship, trusts and other legal devices to ensure your children are cared for if the worst should happen. Accordingly, it is important that the adopted child understand his or her origins when the time is right, otherwise your death may be the harbinger of unpleasant surprises.

To learn more, you might visit any one of the following sites:

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Finding the Living Among the Dead

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

My daughter and I traveled to Wales in 2005 to find my third great grandfather’s grave. When we found it (after extensive research before our trip), we purchased some local flowers and left those flowers and a note attached to those flowers for anyone who might visit the grave later. If someone visited the grave, they may be a relative, even if distant.

Many people lurk around cemeteries and family grave sites on Memorial Day or during a town’s “Decoration Day”* for many reasons – one is to pay respect to the dead, but the other is in hopes of finding or seeing long-lost or totally lost relations. In other cases, entire families visit the cemetery to have picnics and to meet friends who aren’t lost (or dead) at all.

Cemeteries were the precursors to public parks, according to Sharon DeBartolo Carmack, author of Your Guide to Cemetery Research. The elite garden cemetery (such as Cave Hill Cemetery located in Louisville, Kentucky – the image shown here is the main entrance to Cave Hill Cemetery, Baxter Avenue) was designed for the dead, but also to appeal to the living. I wish I had known that some folks use cemeteries as meeting places before I visited Hawaii a few decades ago. Perhaps, then, I would not have been shocked at the families who gathered in cemeteries to sit on headstones while they munched away on poi or chicken and drank canned juice.

This tradition of picnicking at cemeteries truly is unique to Hawaii, and eating and socializing together at a relative’s or friend’s grave is not reserved for holidays. In one instance, a family gathers at a mother’s grave on her birthday. “It’s the idea like even if she were at home, she would just be sitting there listening to the conversation,” her daughter said. “She’s gone but she’s not forgotten.”

In her book, Carmack encourages family gatherings at cemeteries or taking a tour of cemeteries where ancestors are buried. She believes that this type of gathering is one way for younger family members to learn more about their families. She states that “cemeteries are also a wonderful place to teach children about respect for the dead and the sacredness of the final resting place.” These teachings, perhaps, can help to avoid future vandalism by explaining that the cemetery like “a museum without walls.”

* Decoration Day is a holiday celebrated mainly in the south at the local level. This holiday began after the Civil War and it was encouraged to help decorate the many graves of the Confederate dead. Northern citizens, however, were doing the same, and it was decided to merge the practice and create a national holiday. Decoration Day first was celebrated nationally on 30 May 1868. According to the Memorial Day History site:

Traditional observance of Memorial day has diminished over the years. Many Americans nowadays have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. At many cemeteries, the graves of the fallen are increasingly ignored, neglected. Most people no longer remember the proper flag etiquette for the day. While there are towns and cities that still hold Memorial Day parades, many have not held a parade in decades. Some people think the day is for honoring any and all dead, and not just those fallen in service to our country.

There are a few notable exceptions. Since the late 50’s on the Thursday before Memorial Day, the 1,200 soldiers of the 3d U.S. Infantry place small American flags at each of the more than 260,000 gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery. They then patrol 24 hours a day during the weekend to ensure that each flag remains standing. In 1951, the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts of St. Louis began placing flags on the 150,000 graves at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery as an annual Good Turn, a practice that continues to this day. More recently, beginning in 1998, on the Saturday before the observed day for Memorial Day, the Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts place a candle at each of approximately 15,300 grave sites of soldiers buried at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park on Marye’s Heights (the Luminaria Program). And in 2004, Washington D.C. held its first Memorial Day parade in over 60 years.

To help re-educate and remind Americans of the true meaning of Memorial Day, the “National Moment of Remembrance” resolution was passed on Dec 2000 which asks that at 3 p.m. local time, for all Americans “To voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to ‘Taps.’

The Moment of Remembrance is a step in the right direction to returning the meaning back to the day. What is needed is a full return to the original day of observance. Set aside one day out of the year for the nation to get together to remember, reflect and honor those who have given their all in service to their country.

But what may be needed to return the solemn, and even sacred, spirit back to Memorial Day is for a return to its traditional day of observance. Many feel that when Congress made the day into a three-day weekend in with the National Holiday Act of 1971, it made it all the easier for people to be distracted from the spirit and meaning of the day. As the VFW stated in its 2002 Memorial Day address: “Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day. No doubt, this has contributed greatly to the general public’s nonchalant observance of Memorial Day.”

On January 19, 1999 Senator Inouye introduced bill S 189 to the Senate which proposes to restore the traditional day of observance of Memorial Day back to May 30th instead of “the last Monday in May”. On April 19, 1999 Representative Gibbons introduced the bill to the House (H.R. 1474). The bills were referred the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Government Reform.

So, the next time you visit a cemetery (if you ever do), take a look around and notice the living among the dead. You might realize that cemeteries – while useful as resting places for the dead – also are useful places to meet among the living.

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Posted in Cemeteries, Death & Dying, Death Practices, Graveyard Etiquette, History of Funerals, Talking with Children, Traditions | 1 Comment »

The Funeral Wake

Sunday, May 31st, 2009

Also known as “visitation,” “calling hours” and “waking the dead,” the funeral wake is a way to pay respect to the deceased. In the past, the wake was part social and partly practical, as – before funeral parlors and homes were created – the funeral often took place in the home of the deceased. Embalming often was not practiced, so someone needed to sit with the body to keep the bugs, flies, rats, dogs, cats and other curious and carnivorous animals – such as body snatchers – away from the corpse.

In addition, before embalming, there was a real fear that a person might be buried alive. A wake allowed that time before burial to make sure the corpse was, indeed, a corpse.

At this point, the history of the wake varies depending upon cultural and ethnic rituals and religion. Often, the history of the wake is tied to the Irish, where food and spirits and wailing, or keening, and long hours of visitation marked a friend’s passing. Today, however, many wakes are solemn affairs that are held at funeral homes and that include visiting the family and viewing the body before the funeral. Many times, however, family members or friends will hold a separate wake without the body at a private home or even at a bar or restaurant to celebrate the life of the deceased after the funeral.

Here are some tips about holding or attending a wake, or visitation:

  • Be sure to announce visitation hours and place of visitation in the obituary for the deceased. This way, you don’t have to worry about special invitations.
  • However, you may want to make sure that everyone close to the family has been notified about the death and visitation in person (by phone if at all possible to make the notice more personal).
  • Open caskets at a visition mean that the viewers are to pay respects. If, however, you feel you cannot view the body, then you can spare the family even more grief by abstaining. Do, however, pay respects to the family members who remain living.
  • You may find a guest book at a visitation. Sign your full name and address so family members can send a note of appreciation if they choose.
  • Although children often are asked to funerals (via “the family”), sometimes children may add more confusion and fear to the whole affair unless they’ve been accustomed to death in the family. A conversation with young children might be more appropriate than actually having them attend the funeral. Teens, however, should be permitted and encouraged to attend as part of family ritual.
  • If you plan to attend a wake in a private home or other public place, the point is to celebrate the life of the deceased and life in general, not to get so drunk to forget why you’re there in the first place. If you plan to drink heavily, please take a taxi or ask for a designated driver before attending. Leave the car keys at home. The last thing anyone needs after a wake is to plan for your wake.

Posted in Death & Dying, Death Practices, Funeral Arrangements, Funeral Basics, Grief and Grieving, Talking with Children, Traditions | 2 Comments »

Early Funeral Customs

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

Attitudes toward death in America have changed over the centuries, because this country’s socio-economic status has changed as well as occupations, ethnic influences and more. In colonial America, especially in New England with the Puritans, and in Colonial Virginia, death was looked upon with a reality that does not seem prevalent today. Life was cut short from encounters with Native Americans, disease, lack of sanitary conditions and an equal lack of medical facilities.

The Puritans had little regard for the physical body after death, and they did not dwell on memorials or public expressions of grief even though they may have mourned in private. According to Sharon DeBartolo Carmack, author of Your Guide to Cemetery Research, the Puritans made sure their children understood death was part of life:

The Puritans prepared their children for death by reading to them – or having the child read – gruesome verses in the Bible, lecturing them about the deaths of other children, or dragging them to the edge of an open grave to make them aware of their own mortality. Death was part of their daily life and prayer, and they believed that their salvation was never certain.

While the Puritans reflected upon death in their letters and journals, colonial Virginians along the Chesapeake treated death with a “stoic fatalism.” They did not ruminate about death in letters or journals, but they did – over time – develop a public ’sensibility’ about mourning. During the nineteenth century, after the American Revolution, attitudes about death changed dramatically as Americans won their freedom from the British.

It wasn’t until shortly after the Civil War, however, when society felt they needed to make monuments to the dead. Funerals became more elaborate and etiquette was established – even to the point of what to say and not to say to the family and friends of the deceased. In fact, the funeral industry saw its beginnings during and shortly after the Civil War, when soldiers needed to be embalmed before they were sent home.

Although the funeral industry often is the object of public attacks, funeral homes across the country also have won respect from families and friends of the deceased who trusted these businesses to treat their loved ones with respect and care. Variously called “undertakers,” “funeral directors,” and “morticians,” America’s new ritual specialists have transformed the twentieth-century experience of death and body disposal.

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How to Discuss Death with a Child

Wednesday, December 24th, 2008

I was young when my grandmother died, but I remember clearly how I felt. I was sad, but mostly I was scared. I didn’t know what had happened, and – in my family – children were the last ones to know about details. That experience finally led me to counseling, which was a great move. You see, that counseling taught me how to talk about death with my own daughter.

Instead of hiding details, we have dealt with death together a few times during her life. Kids become aware of death well before a family member or friend dies. Pets, birds, insects and roadkill all present opportunities to talk about death and dying. Children hear about death on television and they read about it in books. Death is a part of life and children know it exists. Grieving isn’t confined to adults – children grieve during separations, divorces and even when they lose or break a favorite toy.

So it helps to talk about death well before a loved one dies. What we say or when we say it will depend upon the child’s age and experience. Also, it will depend upon our own experiences, beliefs and feelings as parents. But, it is good to talk about death before a loved one dies, as the feelings that occur during burial preparation and a funeral often color how adults portray facts about death to children.

I have learned that talking about death with my daughter is an ongoing process. She understood death differently as a child than she does now as a teen. But, each time she experienced grief, she felt it the same as any adult. She felt the loss physically, emotionally, spiritually and cognitively, and she needed love, guidance and care the same as any grieving adult.

The best way to talk about death with a child is to be straightforward and honest. Ask local librarians if they have materials on hand to help you with your explanations, as you want to keep it simple. Use an experience, such as the loss of a pet, to open dialogues with a child.

Help that child express his or her feelings about death. Leave openings for them to talk about their feelings or to ask questions. Don’t hide your own feelings, as your child probably knows you better than you know yourself. When you hide your feelings, that child may believe that you are lying about your thoughts as well. That’s not a great way to build trust.

Please don’t tell a child how to feel, as they will experience grief in his or her wn way. The last burden a child needs is to believe that their grief is “wrong” because it isn’t how you said it would be. Grief is personal, and it varies from person to person and from child to child.

Lastly, don’t presume that a child with ‘get over it.’ My experience led me to counseling almost two decades after my grandmother died. I don’t blame my parents for their lack of empathy, as they did what they felt was right at the time. But, I won’t repeat that same experience with my daughter. If your child needs help to wade through his or her grief, bring other loved ones in to help or find a support group or counseling to help provide comfort and care.

Although talking with a child about death isn’t the easiest thing in the world to accomplish, the experience may bring you both closer together. And, that’s what living is all about.

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