Is there anything that has scared humanity more than death over the years? Not that we can think of.
But one of the biggest reasons for our fear is lack of communication. People fear what they don’t understand, what remains unmentionable, and fear starts to build early.
That’s why talking to kids about it matters too.
For Dying Matters Awareness Week (May 9-15), which encourages people to talk openly about our mortality, Keech Hospice Care in Luton asked some children three big questions about death.
The result? Too funny!
“What happens when you die?”
One child was pretty optimistic about it, saying simply that “you sleep.” Another was a bit more realistic (not to mention morbid): “You never come back alive.”
But our favourite was this little one’s unintentionally light-hearted approach to the question: “Everyone has to stand around you. I know that because I watched the Jungle Book.”
“Where do you go?”
Once again, the responses were wide-ranging.
“You go into the sky into the stars and you sit on a star,” said one little girl, before adding: “My two grandpas are sitting on them already.”
Others took the question a bit more literally. “You don’t always have to go,” said one child. “My cat died – and she’s just in a jar now.”
“What’s it like?”
Our favourite response to this one was sugar-laden, to say the least. “There’ll be chocolate, everything chocolate and marshmallows,” she said.
Watch them talk more about the big D below.
