advice on how to explain death/funeral to 4yr old ds?

MAM1006

DH's aunt just passed away.  she was 71 and battled Leukemia for 4 years.  DS did not know her (only met her 2-3 times in his life and he was a baby).  However, DH and I, and my in-laws (who are a BIG BIG BIG part of DS's life) were all quite close with her.  She is/was FIL's brother's wife.  Tomorrow is the funeral and DS is not going.  However we attending  shivah afterwards (shivah is just the period of mourning where the famiy all gets together at someone's house and comforts each other.  the mood is somewhat "light", there is lots of food/sweets and children are often invited)  DH's uncle insists that he wants the kids there to lighten the mood and to cheer him up.  So we are bringing DS who will probably just think it is a party of some sort, but then again, adults will be there talking about our aunt.  do I use this as an opprtunity to tell DS about death and such, or do I just pretend everything is status quo since he didn;t know her anyway??  and if the former, what the heck do I say to him???  would appreciate any info and TIA

Halo79RN

my granny died in Aug and I brought my kids down to my hometown for the funeral.  My ILs kept them during the mass, but they were with us for the dinner afterwards.  I kept explanation to a minimal. dd asked about Granny when we arrived. I kept answers short.  Dd wasn't asking for explanations of my answers.  She just knew something was going on.  She knew Granny had been ill.  She still talks about Granny here and there and we never lived near her.  but she coded (was in the hospital and her heart stopped) while we were on the phone with her.  I kept it to Granny was sick but now she's better, she's in heaven.  Or Granny's not with us anymore b/c she went to heaven.  Otherwise, dd did not ask and she, her brother and her cousin just played together the entire time. Ds had no clue what was going on.  She will be four this month.  I would guess over the next year she may have more questions with regards to stuff like this.  ???

Sorry for your loss. 

meghans30

Sounds like this may be a good time to have an age appropriate discussion about death. He probably still won't understand, but at least it will be a start. I haven't had to deal with this yet, so I'm interested in what others will say.