As a minister with the United Church for 15 years, now-retired Rev. Rosemary Godin knows first-hand how difficult it can be trying to explain the concept of death to young children after the loss of a loved one.
That is why the Barrie native decided to put pen to paper and create an interactive children’s book to help families deal with the loss of people or pets they love.
I Lost Someone I Love: Explaining the Mystery of Death to the Youngest Among Us is aimed at children between the ages of three to eight years old.
Born and raised in Barrie and currently living in Cape Breton, N.S., Godin said she decided to write the book after years of struggling to find an appropriate resource to offer congregation members following the death of a family member.
“Around the time of funerals, I would always have families ask me if I could suggest a book that would help. I tried to always have a children’s book on hand, but I found I had to order it from the U.S., and the theology was a little bit more conservative than we are used to up here,” she said. “There were things in it that I was uncomfortable with telling a child. It was more evangelical than a lot of the mainstream Christian religions are up here.”
Godin felt it was important to have a resource that was Canadian-made, so when she retired two-and-a-half years ago she decided to sit down and start writing.
“(The pandemic) gave me a lot of time to write this and I went looking for people to illustrate it, and found the Bernard Sisters.”
Kaylyn and Kassidy Bernard, owners of Patuo’kn Illustration of We’koqma’q First Nation in Cape Breton, shared her vision for the book, which features simple and inclusive drawings that depict kids of all colours and a variety of different cultures. The young narrator of the book - Jamie - is also non gender-specific.
“A child can look at Jamie and think it’s either a girl like her, or a boy like him. It’s as inclusive as we can make it,” she said. “We needed to take a gentle approach to discussing death with children. It’s also a book that’s intended not just for a child to read, but there should be an adult to sit down with them and go through it, because they’re asked question by the six year old child Jamie, who is the narrator (in the book).”
The answers to those questions, she continued, are included in the book, which provides a child the opportunity to talk about the loved one who has died, while also giving adults the chance to get some indication of how the child is thinking through the death.
“When there is a death in a family, one thing we have to remember is that everybody is grieving. We have grieving parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, who then have to sit down with a child and explain, (through) their own grief, what is going on,” she said. “A book like this gives a good foundation and is a guide to introducing the child to the concept of death.”
While I Lost Someone I Love: Explaining the Mystery of Death to the Youngest Among Us is categorized as a religious book, Godin said it doesn’t mention God at all, but does discuss the concept of heaven.
“It is comforting for a child to know there is something going on afterwards.”
The book is available online through Amazon or Chapters, as well as through Godin’s website thankgoodness.ca.
