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Death, Loss, And Grieving Term Paper

¶ … grandfather died I was only six years old. I didn't know my grandfather well; he lived far away from us, and I guess because of the costs of traveling, we did not get there as often as we would have liked, and my grandparents could not come here as often as they would have liked. As a six-year-old my feelings about death were simplistic. My guinea pig, named "Sunshine," had died the year before, and my mother helped me make a little burial box for him. We used a hot glue gun to line a shoebox with fabric, and tenderly buried him in the back yard. I asked my mother if I would see Sunshine in heaven some day. She said that when we went to heaven our lives would be full of joy, and that if joy for me would be having Sunshine again, maybe that would be part of it, but that she didn't really know.

That surprised me, because my Sunday school teacher had made it sound as if adults knew all about what life after death is life. She had spoken with such certainty! If we were good, and did the best we could not to sin, and had the right religious beliefs, we would go to heaven. She made heaven sound wonderful, and I could not imagine heaven without Sunshine in it.

Then...

But I remembered Granddad hiding Easter eggs, and I still cried. I said "But mommy that's so long from now." She said, yes, that was the greatest sadness, that it would be so long before we were all together again.
All this information was confirmed for me when I went to Grandddad's funeral. People like my dad and Granddad's best friend got up and told funny stories about him, one of which I still remember: one day my grandfather took my father on a roller coaster at a theme park. My father had bugged and bugged Granddad until he got a silly hat with mouse ears on it, and put it on. Then dad got sick on the roller coaster, and Granddad had to use his hat as a receptacle when my dad got sick in the middle of the ride. According to my Dad, he never got on a roller coaster again, and Granddad never wore any kind of hat again.

At six years old I didn't understand everything I needed to know about death. It hurt to have Granddad gone, so I couldn't feel the love in my…

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