Kids and Their First Viewing: How We Prepared Them & How it Went | Part 1

This is Part 1 of a Series on Kids & Funerals

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My dear 93 year old Grandma died in September. Her last 4 years were fraught with ever-increasing dementia, limited mobility, and loss of speech. Despite the losses, with every visit she smiled, giggled, teared up seeing me, and truly remained a joy to be with until the end.

I found out about her death in front of my kids. They saw the instant, real and painful tears. I didn’t try to hide them because when someone you love dies, it’s normal to cry.  My kids are 8, 5, and 2; they were uncharacteristically silent, quickly found Kleenex for me, slowly had questions, and later, drawings of hearts and words of love were gifted to me.

We talked a lot about grandma, GG to them, short for great-grandma. Once plans for her funeral were made for the following week, we started talking about what the different ceremonies would be like. We bought appropriate clothes for the kids and boarded a plane to Washington.

The viewing was the first ceremony and there were 3 hours scheduled for it. Knowing our kids (and our own limits!), we decided to just go for the last hour. On the way we talked more about what they would see and also chatted about their day, cousins, and where we were going to dinner after. We kept it light, told them some people might cry and that that is normal and ok. We also asked them if they wanted to go in and, yes, each of them (the two who could understand) wanted to be there.

In preparing them for what the viewing would be like, we said things like this:

• “We are going to go to see Grandma at the funeral home. She will be in a casket, a long wooden box with a soft bed inside. She’ll be laying down in the casket wearing beautiful clothes that auntie picked for her. It will look like she’s sleeping but she died so she isn’t sleeping and she won’t wake up.”

We knew that dealing in honesty with them was the right thing to do. Would you feel safe is someone was lying to you? No. It would confuse and complicate everything for them if we lied, covered up, or pretended nothing was happening. So, we were clear, honest, and to the point. It was calming for all of us even if it felt blunt to say.

They asked lots of questions that we had simple and short answers for but at no point was there fear or dread. It helped of course that this was their great-grandma, GG, and someone they weren’t incredibly close with. But still, seeing someone that has died is odd and can be really hard and this would be their first time.

I didn’t know how they would act, here’s what happened:

When we arrived I led the way for them and let them take their time and be where they were comfortable. Do you know where they wanted to be? Right with GG. By her casket, looking in at her, they were calm, quiet, and would ask questions followed by silences. The little boys had monster trucks and took breaks from being with her to play and crash their trucks. The girls played games of hide-and-seek in the lobby outside and greeted other family members that came. They would break away for a bit, and then come back to be with grandma for a few minutes before playing again. It was a perfect balance for all of us. The fun of little kids juxtaposed to the gravity of the moment and the loss of a pillar in our family allowed all of us to move between our grief and the joy of her legacy.

A particularly “kid” moment happened when my darling niece greeted my cousin saying, “You’ve got to come see GG, she’s not even breathing!” We all laughed at the innocence and truth of her words.

Perhaps the most surprising element for me was each of the kids reached out and touched her hands before we left. They were unafraid, at peace in her presence, and the only terrible part was that my grandma wasn’t alive to see them there. She would have laughed the whole time and enjoyed every moment.

It was a remarkable thing to put into practice the wonderful teaching and advice I’ve received over the years as a thanatologist. I knew my energy would inform theirs. And while I was sad, I wasn’t afraid or anxious about my experience or theirs. I knew that they would appreciate the truth rather than be kept from it. When they asked questions, I was intentional to only answer the question as factually as I could. Adults like to over-explain things but kids don’t need that – they need us to just answer what they are asking. Death is uncertain and can be scary for anyone. With kids, we need to trust that they will only ask about what they are ready for. If they have more questions and are ready for more information, they will ask.

Being almost 6 months out from that experience, I can tell you that my kids have had nothing negative to say about their time with GG. They were given the respect of participating because they are her family and they knew and loved her. It’s a strange thing to say, but I will be forever grateful that my grandma was the first dead person my kids saw. Her death yielded a graceful path for the children in our family to walk as they saw death and grief for the first time.