My daughter watched Little Women for the first time last month, and loved it, but it messed with her.
You see, Beth dies.
Little Women tells the story of the March family of Concord, Massachusetts, during and after the Civil War. The father is away at war, and the story focuses on the mother and four grown or nearly grown daughters. It is, more than anything else, a character study of these 5 remarkable women and the friends and suitors who enter and exit their lives. The 1994 film version we own does a wonderful job of drawing us into their lives and helping us, in the course of two hours, to grow attached to them.
And it’s really hard for a four year old to understand why one of these girls dies three quarters of the way through the movie. Beth gets scarlet fever, recovers and lives several more years, grows weak and finally passes peacefully with her sister Jo by her side. Yosi was transfixed by this entire process, peppering Lyndie and I with questions before, during and after the movie. Every single time she made us watch it.
“Daddy, can we watch Little Ladies Growing Up again? The one where Beth dies?”
My daughter has always been fascinated by death, whether in a sad song she adored, or in trying to grasp the death of Jesus as related to the death of our cats. During and after Little Women she asked a dozen different questions about Beth’s sickness and death, and we did our best to answer them. I don’t know how much she understands about death at this point, but what I love is that she’s asking these questions, and that she wants to revisit the material that first brought the questions out. She isn’t backing away from what challenges her, but moving toward it.
A few days ago Yosi and I sat together and watched countless videos of spiders and scorpions on the National Geographic website. She was fascinated, especially by one about a boy who got stung on the foot by a scorpion and one about a a species of wasp that will paralyze a tarantula and then lays eggs on the body so the newly hatched young can feed on the still living arachnid prisoner. That night, somewhat predictably, she had nightmares about scorpions. The next morning though, as soon as we got up, she begged me to watch the videos with her again. I told her I didn’t think it was a good idea since they had given her bad dreams, but she was insistent. So we watched them all again, and she didn’t have nightmares that night. What terrified her also fascinated her, and the latter compelled her to overcome the former.
Above: A good idea before bedtime.
The same dynamic is at work when any of us try to process death. Once again, my daughter teaches me. Too often when something challenges us we back away rather than pushing forward to learn and grow. We allow comfort and safety to trump truth and beauty.
When did you first process death as a child? How have you handled this issue with your own kids?
What terrified her also fascinated her, and the latter compelled her to overcome the former. – Yeah Yosi, me too.
I first processed death as a seven year old. My father died one night, and I was alone with him when he passed away. I woke up to get ready for school, and he did not. It took me a while to figure it out,but when I did, well I can’t even write about it without having a mild anxiety attack. All I knew of death was a complete horror and a stretcher with a rigor mortised daddy underneath a white sheet. Nothing was explained to me, I did not know about heaven or afterlife or what exactly happened to him. Thirty years later, I am finally free of reliving daily that moment of my life. Severe Unresolved Childhood Grief has taken a long time to resolve. But I made it, and I am now free of all the mental illness garbage that came along with that. And, I have always been fascinated with death/spirits/supernatural things my whole life too. Anyhow, I explain it to my kids this way, though they have not really experienced death of a loved one yet complete with a funeral, etc. What we are here on earth is not the real us. The real us is not a body – it’s fictional, just a covering – but we are a spirit or being that never dies like the body that we live in does, and at death goes back to the place that we came from – our home. Also, I see the world somewhat differently that maybe a normal person might. I see it in “realms” if you will. Home is not some place far across the universe. It is right here. Right in front of us. Worlds upon worlds. That is how I see it. That’s where I tell them heaven is. And EVERYONE goes there, period.
My first experience with death came when I was five years old. We were told my mom’s dad was ‘on his death bed’. That wording always scared me. Gave me shivers. The only remembrance I have though is of my brother, Al, (7) and my two cousins, Wayne (9) and Paul (7) and I all sitting on this wine colored horse-hair couch. If you’ve ever sat on horsehair fabric while wearing a cotton dress, you don’t forget it. If you move the wrong way,it’s like really rough sandpaper scraping the tender skin on the back of the thigh.
All of the adults were in the bedroom, whose arch only had a heavy floral curtain to separate it from the living room. We could hear very low sounding voices. My cousin Paul, decided we should amuse ourselves.So the 4 of us crowded onto the piano bench and started to play. None of us knew anything about how to play, of course. It didn’t take long before Uncle Jim came out and very gently said “Perhaps it would be better if you all didn’t do that right now. Here’s some books to read.”
For years I was afraid of Grandma’s bedroom. I can remember spending the night with her when I was about 9 and wondering where the ‘death bed’ was stored. If I think of that time, I remember a ‘death bed,’ the feel of horsehair on my bare thighs, 4 squirmy kids playing a piano, but an uncle who did not scold.