Discussing death with my daughter

I've wondered before what it would be like to have a conversation about death with my daughter. It seems horrible to even think about, but I wondered who we would be discussing – and I kind of hoped it would be a pet before it was a person. At one point V and I even talked about getting goldfish since they usually don’t live too long, and M likely wouldn’t grow too attached to them so as to be too traumatized if they died.

But today, when we visited the seniors, I was told that three residents had passed away in the last week. One was a woman we did not interact much with, one a man whom M would share her toys with, but did not know by name – but one was a man who was one of her favourites – those residents she most willingly and often shares her toys with, knows by name, talks about at home, etc.

I knew John only as a man of few words but with a gentle manner that M instinctively responded to. He was one of the first residents she built a puzzle with and she like to go over and greet him if he was brought into the common room during our visits.

When the facilitator informed me that this gentleman had passed away during the week, my first instinct was to not mention it to M. She may be observant, but no two weeks have been the same in terms of which residents are in the common room during our visit and which ones are up for interacting with her. She seems to have easily accepted that the group will be a little different each week.

So I thought of just letting it slip. Then I realized that this was an opportunity to have our fist discussion about death. It went something like this.

M was talking about our visit today to the seniors and mentioned a few of the residents.

“Yes, they were there,” I said. “But John wasn’t.”
“No.”
“John died, so he won’t be there anymore.”
“No.”

And that was the extent of it - my first conversation about death with my daughter.