When Someone Very Special Dies.

I left the hospital on May 18, 2021, with the unfathomable task of telling my children their beloved father was dead. Never to return. Gone from this earth.

 I was dazed.

I don’t remember who drove me home.

I don’t know if anything was said on that car ride.

I was completely numb.

Someone tucked three books in my bag before I left.

“When Someone Very Special Dies – Children Can Learn to Cope with Grief” by Marge Heegaard. 

I pulled them out later that night and over the next few weeks my children, ages 11, 10 and 6, worked on them with colored pencils.

The book “When Someone Very Special Dies” is a tool that helps explain the loss of a loved one and the cycles of life and death through drawing and coloring. The illustrations to the book are done by the kids who receive it.

It’s so very interesting to look back on the drawings from the first few days and see how my children illustrated death.

It opens a little doorway into the lens through which they are seeing things. 

My kids didn’t complete their books, but they served a purpose.

When the house was quiet, in-between receiving grieving guests, I’d often say, "work on your books" and they would sit at the kitchen table and color in them together.  

When it felt like I was supposed to be doing or saying more to them in our grief, I could ask them what they were drawing and listen to their explanations. 

It gave us a way to process together. 

This book should always be put in the hands of grieving families with young children.