I purposly use the term "crossing over" because the word death has so much negative baggage associated with it that it completely mis informs a child about the true reality of the process of passing from the physical to the non physical. Well for that matter it contiues to corrupt the adults too. I would highly recommend that you use the term crossing over. When my Grandfather crossed over I was about 7 years old. At the time I was very close to him, very close. We used to go hiking through the woods together and every trek would be a new adventure. At the time I was much closer to him than I was my own father. Then one day at work, he suffered from an embolism which took his life instantly. It was a shock to everyone and hit the family very hard. My family insulated me from the news for a day or two until the time came to tell me. My father led me to my bedroom and we sat down on the bed and he began to cry. Then he told me that my Grandfather had passed away. As shocked as my parents were of his passing, they were even more shocked at my response to the news. I did not cry. I did not cry the next day either. In fact, I did not even cry at the memorial service. My parents were put back by this as they knew how close we were, but they had great difficulty in processing how my reaction could seem so distant, so unlike their reactions. Eventually as I grew older they would ask me about that time in my life and what was going on with me. They pointed out my reactions to the news and genuinely wanted to know why my reactions were that way. The truth was, I simply understood what had happened on a spiritual level. I was still young enough to have not been taught how to react to death as adults do. I was at that magical age where I could still be in touch with the magic of a child. where I knew that my Grandpa was ok. In fact I wondered why the adults around me were carrying on with such negative emotions. They wondered why I wasn’t an emotional mess, and I wondered why they were! At the age of 7, I could not have articulated the way I understood, and to this day I still cant really. Its just something I knew. I was lucky in the sense that my Grandfathers death served me well in life as my older relatives began to pass away. I still was able to carry a sense of the rightness with death and the fact that its really the ultimate liberation of life. Kids are a quick study of life as you know. And many times they do adopt the parents or adults emotional baggage and lack of natural alignment with death and life. When this happens, the child has lost touch of his natural ability to understand death in its most natural way, and has been replaced with that negative mentality of other adults. Kids come out of the womb perfect you know … Its when they have spent to much time watching the grown ups that they begin to fall into the same traps that we did. I have more articles for adults about crossing over if you would like to read them, here Crossing Over. The following is an excerpt from Baboo Says, the Magical teenage Genie. If you have a child that needs assistance with accepting someone who has crossed over, then please let them read this. Baboo wants to make sure you understand why people and your great pets cross over. When you talk about someone you love who has died, Baboo would like you to say that they “crossed over”. If you say they died, then that makes you feel like that person is gone forever. And that is a dirty trick to play on yourself! If you say they “crossed over” then that is the truth! That means that they just crossed over from where they were to where they are. If someone you love (this means your pets too) crosses over, do not think of them as being gone away from you. They are still as close to you as they always were. Do you know that your body is 75 percent water? That means most of your body is water. You do not see the water, and maybe your body feels too hard to be made of water, but still it is true! Water is very close to you. In fact its so close to you its under your skin, and I bet you never even think about that? And that is like your spirit too, just behind your physical body. When someone crosses over, they leave their body because they don’t need it anymore. The water in the body stays here on earth, but their spirit is free from their old body. I know you get into and out of a car everyday? A car is just an extra body that you use sometimes to go from one place to another. When you get out of the car, don’t you cross over from one place to another, and leave that car body behind? Sure you do! Well our parents can’t drive the same car forever. And people can’t drive their same bodies forever either. And trust me, Baboo says you wouldn’t want too! Ha Ha Ha. It’s important that you always understand that a persons physical body is not the person you know. The person is behind the body. Even your real person is in a way behind your physical body. If a person looses a finger or toe, or even a leg or arm, they did not loose any of their person, just a part of their physical body. Baboo wants you to understand that difference. When you feel happy, or sad those feelings do not come from your physical body, but they come from your person or spirit. Your spirit will never stop living. Other people’s spirit will never stop living. When a person crosses over, their spirit can be just as close to you as your own spirit is to your physical body. When a person leaves their physical body, they just cross over to the other side and they are free to go anywhere they want too. That meansthey can come see you anytime that you think about them. And sometimes they will come see you in your dreams. Sometimes they will let you know they are around you by giving you a smell that makes you think about them. A spirit has many ways of talking to you, if you would listen to them. If you don’t EXPECT that they can, then they will not. If you don’t FEEL they can, then they can not. If you don’t THINK they can, then they can not. When a person or your pet crosses over, they can see us and hear us everyday. That’s because they do not have to stay in their old physical body, and they can move around anywhere they want too. Sometimes you will dream about someone who has crossed over and that may just be a regular dream. But if you see this person in a dream and it feels like you were really with them, then Baboo says you probably were. And remember, everyone on earth crosses over sometime, and that is what we are supposed to do. We will see everyone we love in person just like when they were here with us. And if you pay attention you can know they are still with you. They can not talk to you with their old physical mouth, but they can speak to you in your mind with their spiritual mouth. You can not feel them touch you with their physical hand, but you can feel them touch you with their spiritual hand, if you let them. And if you can think about them without feeling sad, you can feel them love you too. Sometimes when someone crosses over you will notice grown ups may not talk about them too much. That’s just because grown ups get sad, and they forgot how to use their own Magic. It’s great to talk about people or pets who cross over because they will know when you do and they like that. And really, it will make the grown ups feel better too. You can choose to remember how much you miss someone, or you can choose to believe they are still around you. Baboo wants you to use your Magic Muscle and choose what you want. |
Helping Kids understand "Crossing Over"
Children and Families