|
I think it's ok to take a child to a funeral, if they have been previously talked to, and they are "ready" for the experience. To me it sounds like your grandchild was not ready for this, and perhaps it did do more harm than good. I would be hesitant to let a child go right up to the deceased's body/face in the casket and actually go through the traumatic realization that the person they once knew and loved is now an unresponsive shell. In Portugal a small veil is placed over the face and only those who wish to see the deceased's face will lift it to kiss them goodbye or take one last look.
I do agree children should realize death is a part of life and learn to come to terms with it. I know that if there had been a funeral of someone close to me as a child, I would have wanted to be there. I understood death from a young age. To me, it's important to go, to have closure. It's the last chance to "see" them, so to speak. I will never be in their "presence" again. It consoles me to kiss them goodbye one last time, though it is hard also.
But, each child is different. I think this is a case-by-case situation.
__________________
Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.
Fernando Pessoa, 1918
|