Freddy's Dead: Understanding Death's Permanence

Questions: How old were you when you first experienced issues surrounding death? How did you cope with the news? How do you feel you came to understand what death was as a child?

One area of research I have become particularly fascinated with during my graduate studies is the issue of childhood bereavement. That is, issues of children greiving from the loss of a loved one, or a friend, or perhaps a pet, etc.

My first experience: I was about four or five years old when I met a nice little lizard, whom I came to call "Freddy," that resided on a woodpile in my family's backyard. Freddy was very tame, for a lizard, and never seemed to mind me catching him. Often I would bring him inside the house to play for a while before returning him back to the woodpile.

One evening, I remember, I put Freddy in a bucket and carried him over to my grandmother's house around the corner from me. When we arrived, my grandmother wouldn't let me bring Freddy inside with me and asked that I leave him in the bucket in the backyard. I didn't seem to mind.

Sadly, later when it came time to leave grandmother's house, I discovered that Freddy would not move when I nudged him. Little did I understand that he was dead. Seeing an elderly neighbor in her backyard, I ran up to her, holding Freddy's lifeless body in my hand, and began crying to her "What's wrong with Freddy?" In a consoling tone, she told me he was dead.

My parents and I buried Freddy in the backyard that night. However, that was not the end of it.

According to the Hospice of Southeastern Connecticut Bereavement Program regarding children ages three to six and their perception of death the "Child thinks death is reversible; temporary, like going to sleep or when a parent goes to work; believes that people who die will come back."

So, what did I do? Yep, I thought death was "reversible." Thinking Freddy would be coming back to life any day, I took a hand shovel that was in the backyard and dug up my pal the day after the burial. His eyes were sunken in and he had begun to look a little shriveled and his scales were starting to fall off. Also, as would be expected, he smelled pretty bad.

I continued digging him up for at least a week or two before my parents found out what I had been up to. It was then that they had to tell me the most devastating news -- Freddy wouldn't be coming back to life. Sad day.

Oh well, I suppose I have somehow coped with it in the past twenty, or so, years!