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Dealing with the Loss of a Grandparent as a Child 

The loss of a grandparent can be particularly hard for young children, especially ones that might be too young to really grasp what has happened.

In addition to being a difficult time of loss for you, the whole funeral process can be both overwhelming and unfamiliar to a child. They may be looking for the comfort of a beloved relative who can no longer physically provide it in those unsettling times.

Fortunately, concerned parents and caregivers have begun making a heartwarming effort to memorialize grandparents. They have adopted creative ways that help children retain their cherished memories for years to come.

Here are some ideas that we’ve found particularly touching to help your children feel and remember the love that their grandparents shared with them.

Four Encouraging Ideas to Aid a Child’s Mourning Process

1. Create a memory box

Purchase a small wooden box at a craft store, and help your children decorate it with drawings or stickers that remind them of their grandparent. Attach a photo of the grandparent and child to the top of the box.

When the box has been decorated, fill it with tokens and mementos that remind your child of times spent together with their grandparents. Perhaps they have saved shells that the two of them collected on a trip to the beach, or maybe you’ve saved ticket stubs from an event or tourist visit that you’ve shared.

Encourage your child to place items in the box that bring back happy memories of them with their grandparent, and when they are feeling lonely, they can visit the box and touch all those things that made their time together special.

2. Have a shirt sewn into a pillow

If you still have access to a shirt that your child’s grandparent wore often, have someone sew their shirt into a pillow. You might even include a special note or phrase that your child would hear their grandparent say, which you can have either embroidered directly onto the shirt itself or placed on a fabric square in the pocket if the shirt is collared.

Explain to your child that whenever they miss their grandparent, they can give them a hug by squeezing their pillow.

3. Make a photo collage

There is a high probability that you have many wonderful pictures of your child with their grandparent, so use this as a way to both sort through your photos and display them proudly.

Have your child select their favorite photos of their grandparent, and assist them in gluing the photos together in a picture frame. (Don’t forget to make duplicates of these photos to also have a pristine copy for yourself.)

Encourage your child to discuss their choices and the memories associated with the photos, and talk about how they felt when the photos were being taken.

4. Write a grandparent story journal

Depending on the age of your child, this might be more of your project than theirs. If your children are extremely young, take an opportunity to write down some of your own memories of your child with their grandparent in a blank notebook. For slightly older children, you can write down the stories as they’re dictated to you, and for children that are of writing age, you can discuss the stories and help your child write them down.

Children, Emotional Development and Family Bonding 

Above all, the most important part of helping children cope with the loss of a grandparent is keeping that grandparent’s memory alive, rather than removing the grandparent from the conversation for fear of making your little one sad.

Tell stories, share memories, and display pictures of your children with their grandparent, and be sure to address any age-appropriate questions they might have with honest and accessible answers.

They are grieving, and you are too—instead of keeping your feelings from them, use this as an opportunity to teach your children about emotions and to grow together as a family.

At Pines Funerals, we recognize that losing a grandparent is a significant event in every family member’s life, and we are here to help and support each and every one of you, no matter what the age, at this delicate time.

 

Given the events of the last two years, it has not always been possible for everyone to attend a memorial service that would have liked to. Whether for geographical, logistical, or health reasons, family members and friends haven’t always been able to be on-site to help mourn the loss of a loved one, which is certainly a vital part of everyone’s grieving process.

Luckily, with new challenges come new solutions.

With a little bit of additional effort, you can be sure to include the ones in the memorial service that would be there if they could, all while giving your loved one the commemoration they deserve.

Ideas for Including Family Members in Commemorating Your Loved One

Whether near or far, everyone can take part in honoring those who have passed with any of these ideas incorporated into the memorial program.

• Make online streaming options available

There are many reasons why all of the people who want to honor their loved ones will not physically be present at the funeral home. Allow them to send their love and condolences through a virtual memorial service.

This can be achieved by one or multiple screens placed strategically in the funeral home, as well as a steady Internet connection, which allows for everyone to attend the memorial in the most realistic way possible.

Holding a virtual service naturally depends on the capacities of your funeral home and care providers. It should be planned with enough advance time, not only to allow the home to set up the necessary technology, but also to give family and friends the appropriate passwords and links.

• Make a recording temporarily available

If family members are located in different time zones or have different home or work schedules, it would be a good idea to allow everyone access to a recording of the memorial service, at least for a short period of time. That way, everyone has a chance to say goodbye, no matter what their situation may be.

• Hold a virtual wake 

Many of us have now become experts at video conferencing for work and family connection, and there’s no better time to use this technology than for coming together and celebrating a beloved family member.

Schedule a time that works for the largest number of people, and tell stories, laugh, cry, and appreciate the person who you are honoring, in a way that you might have never imagined possible a number of years ago.

• Create a shareable presentation to send to family and friends

Someone among your family and friends might be talented with creating videos, so ask them to help you create a slideshow with any pictures, videos, or other mementos that you might have. This memorial presentation can be shared with the family during any part of the long-distance memorial service, and you can send a copy to them by email to keep after the commemorations have ended.

Moving Forward Together in Memory

Our loved ones are both near and far, and some might say that traditions are changing as a result of recent world events. We here at Pines Funerals believe that this has simply allowed us to be even more inclusive. We can now more naturally and professionally help everyone share in the gathering and commemoration of the ones you love.

 

We are more than happy to accommodate you in any way that we can when it comes to long-distance commemoration and memorial services.

by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D.

If someone you love has died of the novel coronavirus, it is likely that you are facing a number of challenging circumstances. Grief is always difficult, but it is especially difficult whenever a death is sudden, unexpected, and unfolds in ways that violate our expectations and puts up barriers to the cultural grief rituals that help us through.

I have been a grief counselor and educator for over forty years, and this pandemic is unlike anything I have encountered. I am sorry you have been so deeply affected by this hardship.

First, it is important to understand that grief is always normal and necessary. It is part of our love. But in complicated loss situations, the grief that follows often gets complicated, too. It is essentially normal grief in an abnormally challenging loss situation.

If this is where you are finding yourself right now, I hope this article will offer you some affirmation, comfort, and hope in the weeks to come.

If you couldn’t be with the person who was dying, or if you couldn’t view or spend time with the body after the death

In most cases, infectious-disease protocols are keeping loved ones apart from those who are critically ill or dying. Whether you were across the country or just down the road, you probably felt frustrated and maybe even distraught that you couldn’t be by your loved one’s side. While the enforced separation may have been necessary, you may understandably feel cheated of precious last moments and goodbyes.

Sometimes hospital caregivers have been able to use technology to help families communicate with loved ones dying of COVID-19 (or other causes during this period of restrictions). I hope this was true for you, but I also realize that these measures are not the same as being there.

Holding the hands of the dying and spending time with the body afterward are ways that we as human beings acknowledge the reality of a death and begin to embrace the pain of the loss. These are two essential mourning needs that will be naturally more difficult for you to meet in the weeks and months to come.

I encourage you to talk out your thoughts and feelings about these circumstances with people who are good listeners. When the time is right, I also encourage you to reach out to the hospital and/or funeral home staff who cared for your loved one and ask them to tell you anything they can. If you can reconstruct what happened even a little bit, you will likely feel better. Often our minds are searching for a few details and assurances, and when they’re provided, we can rest a little easier.

If a funeral wasn’t possible or has been delayed

Funerals are essential because they help us begin to meet all of our mourning needs. The mourning journey often takes years, and a good funeral sets us off on a good path.

Funerals help us acknowledge and accept the reality of a death, share memories, convert our relationship with the person who died from one of presence to one of memory, give and receive social support, express our grief out loud, consider the meaning of life and death, and help us start to think about how to live life forward with meaning and purpose.

Yet I realize that in this pandemic, many gatherings have been rendered impractical or impossible. I’ve been encouraging funeral directors and families to try to have a brief immediate ceremony, even if only by Zoom or Skype, followed by a larger memorial service once the restrictions are lifted. Some people have also been holding an informal, intimate service in their own homes to mark the death and honor the person who died.

Please know that it’s never too late to have a ceremony, and especially if you weren’t able to be with the dying person or the body afterward, holding several ceremonies is a good idea. Ask a clergyperson, celebrant, or friend to help you. You will find that people who were unable to support you at the time of the death will want to provide you the support you need and deserve. And inviting friends and family to support one another is something you will always be glad you did. To achieve the goal of multiple ceremonies, you might have an immediate candle-lighting service in your home, a graveside or scattering service as soon as possible, and a tree-planting ceremony on the anniversary of the death, for example.

Essentially, ceremony and ritual have the power to partially fill some of the holes created by the COVID-19 death circumstances. And it’s never too late to use them.

If you’re separated from your support systems

While most of us are sheltering in place, we’re apart from the people we would normally talk to, hug, and hold close during a time of great loss.

If this is true for you, I urge you to use all the technology tools you can to reach out to the people you care about. Video calls are probably the best substitute for face-to-face conversations. Voice calls come second. After that, emails, texting, and social media work too. And don’t forget the power of the handwritten letter! The point is to stay connected as much as possible AND to be open and honest in those communications about whatever it is you are feeling or struggling with at the moment. Your candor will encourage others to be honest as well, creating the opportunity for mutual support and kindness.

In addition to creating a lifeline in the time of separation, these tools will help you maintain and build your important relationships so that when gathering and travel restrictions are finally lifted, you will have the strong connections and good momentum you need. Everyone will be on the same page and ready to support one another in person. You can even use this homebound time to plan ceremonies, build online memorial pages, and gather photos, video footage, and memorabilia of the person who died.

If you’re angry, anxious, self-blaming, or feeling guilty

In complicated grief circumstances, these feelings are especially common. They’re normal! Feelings aren’t right or wrong—they just are. Please don’t make it even harder on yourself by judging your feelings or thinking that you’re abnormal.

Maybe you’re angry about how the person who died contracted coronavirus or was cared for while ill. Maybe you feel anxious that you or someone else will get the disease (and perhaps die), or maybe the death has given rise to anxiety about finances and other life realities. Maybe you blame yourself about some aspect of what happened. And maybe you feel guilty that you are still living while your loved one is not.

Again, these and other feelings are normal and common in grief, and especially in complicated grief. Whenever you’re having an uncomfortable or “stuck” feeling, the key is to express it as much and as often as it takes for it to begin to soften. You express it by sharing it with a friend, writing about it in a journal, or talking about it in a support group or to a grief counselor, for example. Expressing your grief is called mourning, and mourning is how, over time, you step one day at a time toward healing.

I understand that right now, the traumatic nature of your loved one’s COVID-19 death and your thoughts and feelings about it may color every aspect of your grief. It is part of your grief, but it is not the totality of your grief. Other factors that contribute to your grief include the nature of the relationship you had with the person who died, your unique personality, your religious and cultural backgrounds, your gender, your age, your previous experiences with loss, as well as others. Your grief is a complicated blend of thoughts and emotions, most of which stem from your love for the person who died. Over time you will come to find that your grief is as much or more about the life than it is about the death.

If you are able to muster the courage to actively mourn and use ceremony, over time you will find a path to a renewed life of meaning and purpose. Remember, you are not alone, and there are no rewards for speed. I hope you will share your coronavirus story and grief tips with me at drwolfelt@centerforloss.com.

About the author

Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D., is an author, educator, and grief counselor. He serves as Director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition and is on the faculty of the University of Colorado Medical School’s Department of Family Medicine. Dr. Wolfelt has written many bestselling books on coping with grief, including Grief One Day at a Time and First Aid for Broken Hearts. Visit www.centerforloss.com to learn more about grief and loss and to order Dr. Wolfelt’s books.