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Thursday August 28, 2003

Coping with death

By CHAN LILIAN

SOME years ago, my husband and I thought it would be a great idea to have our two older children keep pets. We started with goldfish. That was the first lesson my children learnt about living things, caring for them and learning to make them part of the family.

However, soon the joy of having Goldie, Blackie and the whole fish gang turned into one sombre  funeral after another. Every time a fish died, we would dig a hole, bury the fish in it, mark the spot with a stone and bid Mr Fish  bye-bye .

From fishes we advanced to rabbits, then hamsters. A few outstanding pets remained in my children’s memories long after they had been buried. Often, my children would ask if rabbits went to heaven, too.

Those pet funerals turned out to be very useful lessons in life for my children. Young minds like theirs cannot grasp the meaning of death. When they watch cartoons, characters die and live again the next moment. But giving their precious pets funerals taught them that once a pet dies, it no longer exists physically.

When my two older children were six and four years old, my beloved mother who was their primary caregiver died unexpectedly. One day she was taking care of them and the next, she was gone. They had depended totally on her and grandma had doted on them.

When they woke up that morning, we told them calmly that grandma had died during the night. Then came their endless questions like:  Why does she want to die? Is it because she doesn t want to take care of us?  Who is going to make barley water for us when we come back from kindy?