Children, death and loss
Beth and I will occasionally get asked about what we did with raising our three children (Gabe, Ben, and Grace) after the loss of Jessica and Joshua. Do we talk about Jess and Josh with our other children? We decided early on to try and not put our grief upon our three children that were still here. We didn’t feel it would be fair to them to have to deal with grieving parents as they were growing up. The tears, sorrow, and aching hole in our hearts were still there, we just tried to make sure it wasn’t apparent to them.
We would talk about Jess and Josh to Gabe, Ben, and Grace. They knew they had a brother and sister that had passed. For those that don’t know, Jess and Josh passed before any of our other children were born. The two sets of children were never alive at the same time. We talked to the three later children about the signs that we had gotten from Jess and Josh. We would also share with them whenever we got new signs. We talked to them about how death is just a transition, about how Jess and Josh are still alive, just in a different form. We talked about learning a new way to communicate with Jess and Josh.
We started these conversations early in their years as soon as we felt they could understand the conversations. We always talked to them like they were adults when it came to these subjects. When they were old enough, we shared with them some of the details of the accident. We never gave them the specific details; those things weren’t for them.
We talked to them about shamanic healing techniques and our experiences with shamanism. They see people come into our home for healings and are respectful of the process. They know about energy and its effects and accept it. At some point they may delve deeper into the shamanic side of things, that is up to them. One of them wants nothing to do with ghosts and spirits. Two of them have seen spirits in our home. They jokingly call upon Dad the ghostbuster whenever they see any spirits.
Our children are respectful, kind, courteous, and very mature for their age. Beth and I feel one of the reasons are because we were open with them about this subject and talked to them like they were adults. Beth and I wish that more people were open about death and the impact it has. That would be a wonderful change for our society. Too many people fear death. This fear leads to people wanting to avoid talking about death and loss. They don’t know how to talk about it. Most religions and spiritual conversations talk about some form of an afterlife. Unless you are an atheist, you have something to look forward to.
