Many of you are familiar with Dr. Randy Pauch’s Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. For those of you who have not seen this amazing lecture, informed by his journey with terminal pancreatic cancer, here is the YouTube video of the lecture:
In his book, he ends it with a request for information from those of us whose own parents died when we were young. My mother suggested I write to him; the letter follows. I do not expect him to read it, for I am sure he is deluged with mail of all kinds these days. I did, however, think the letter was a good summation of my own thinking about how to help children who face the death of a parent.
Dear Dr. Pausch,
I am writing to you because I understand you seek first-hand reflections from those of us who lost our father at a young age. I was six when Daddy died from a MI following a year of being in the hospital off and on due to viral myocarditis. I can remember my mother coming and taking me on Fridays to see him at lunchtime. We would stand outside of the ICU in the grass, and the nurse would open the window so I could see Daddy and talk to him. Thankfully, the ICU was on the first floor! In 1977, children were not allowed into the ICU proper, but my mother wanted me to see Daddy with my own eyes. She is a nurse, which I think helped inform her understanding differently than the prevailing wisdom of the time. Now, unless there was an issue of infection, we would never keep a child out of the ICU.
You may wonder how it is that I know this fact. I grew up to become an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and have worked as both a hospital and hospice chaplain. I did my Residency in Clinical Pastoral Education at RUMC in conjunction with the JMSHCC. My clinical rotation was as the first chaplain for their stand alone Trauma Unit. Prior to that, I worked at the UNCH and with CDS, where I helped families facing the brain death of a loved one. In January, I left Hospice and became the Support Services Director for the CCA. I offer to you my credentials for two reasons: 1) I want you to know I understand grief and bereavement issues as both a mourner and as professional; and 2) I want to spark your imagination about the potential to use the deep shit of one’s life for good–even if that shit happens as a young child.
Daddy’s death taught me some very fragile, yet important lessons, at six. Freud would call it my “primary narcissistic trauma.” I call it the moment my DNA changed. Whoever I might have been without his death at that moment, ceased to exist. The only potential future before me included the loss of my father. I would travel without his presence. Period. Every moment of the time of being told about his death is real to me still, but so is Daddy. In today’s grief lingo we speak of “continuing bonds.” Even death does not end our relationships with those most dear to us. One need not believe in an afterlife in order for these bonds to exist. (I dream of one, but I do not know one exists.) The way I put it to the families I care for is this: The love in our hearts keeps them alive within us. Nothing can separate us from that love. It never dies as long as we remember.
Remembering is the greatest gift. I know your children are young, but I remember more of being 0-6 than any of my peers. Why? My mother was keen to ask me to continually retell my Daddy stories. Even as it broke her heart, she listened and cajoled. I am 37 now, but I still remember being on a National Airlines flight at 3 months of age. I cannot, however, remember what I did last Friday night! Why? My theory is that my young memories became reinforced by the storytelling so much they became marked within my mind and saved as permanent not temporary. When I was six, it was not a big deal to think back two years and remember playing with Daddy at the park. Now, I would be hard pressed. So, my first thought is your wife needs to be committed–even when she cannot breathe or hardly get out of bed–to ask your children to tell her stories about you. The whole extended family would also need to be encouraged in this regard.
Secondly, leave for your children as many personalized letters and videos, etc. as you can and make them age appropriate through college and young adulthood. I know this will be the most devastating thing, but I suspect you have already begun this process. My father did not do this at all. In fact, I have a rock in my living room with his penciled “Jack” on it as my only reminder of his handwriting. (He sent the rock to my Grandmother as a joke because our dog kept bringing her rocks as tokens of love when she visited.) I often ask Mother if he would be proud of me…what he would think of my work…if he loved me? Although in my heart I believe these things to be true, how much the better to have them before me. You come across to me as a man of good humor and realism–don’t forget that in these remembrances. Your children will look to them to decipher who you are, and who they are that is you. They will be both mirror and guide, so set reasonable expectations for their life coupled with a humor-filled dose of “Daddy was a human being, after all.” Losing a parent at a young age immortalizes the parent–Daddy died and climbed onto a pedestal in short order. Some of this is inevitable, but I also think you can show your tender underbelly.
So many parents I have worked with as they are dying want to protect their children from the inevitability of the pain of their loss. They want to delay it as much as they can. This is not helpful, because then the death appears as a trauma. When someone is sick and dies–as in your case and in my own story–warning shots can go across the bow so as to make the death (loss) expected and not a surprise. Children over the age of four can usually handle some form of warning shots, especially reinforcing that you are indeed sick. Depending on emotional maturity, the ages of four to six may be able to handle the possibility of death. Over six, in my opinion they need to know death is not only a possibility, but also a likelihood. I often use the analogy of giving your child Motrin for fever: You never give the whole bottle, but a dose at a time helps them to heal. In the same way, I suggest dosing out these warning shots.
Lastly, I urge you to write letters to your children for when they are 25. In these letters you need to say one very important thing: Goodbye. I wish I had been able to say that to Daddy. My father was healing at the time of his death, and as a result, we went on a little vacation before he was to go back to work July 5th. He died on that trip the morning of June 28, and so I went from seeing him leave with Mother for a few private days one morning (I stayed at my Grandmother’s.), to having Mother tell me of his death the next. Most of the 400 deaths plus I have attended afforded some opportunity for the family to say goodbye, which our death rituals do as well. But the opportunity for the one dying to say it rarely is taken, if even there is the time and space for it. “Goodbye” is powerful and healing.
You know, there really is no “right” way to do things here. This totally sucks! At the same time, there are things I learned as a child that helped me become a tender and intelligent woman and chaplain. Truth and kindness go a long way–for yourself and for others. I do not know what will happen when you die, for you or for them. What I do know is that healing, which is coming to that place where a loss is integrated into our lives, and a rich and full life is possible with great and terrible loss. Your death will change their future, their DNA. The loss is that profound. And with that change great potential will open for them to use that loss to make their lives more, not less. This will be their choice, just as it was mine. May the teaching and loving you do now and the legacy you leave them help inform this choice.
In kindness and solidarity,
Jacqueline Hope Derby
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