Meanwhile many new lives are added to this world everyday through births, many other lives are lost to diseases, wars or simply old ages.
When my husband’s dad passed away last month, my eldest daughter, Julia asked me this very fair question :
“Maman, where is Kak ?”
I must precise here that Kak is the way all grandchild calls their grand ‘dad in Bali, Indonesia, where my husband is from and where we live.
I didn’t expect this question to come so soon and, like many other parents in the same situation, my brain started buzzing with numerous possibilities to answer this tricky question.
Julia baby with her grand pa
Should I just make something up ? Say that he is sleeping deeply that usual or something like that ? Or just be honest about death ? Would she make sense of my words then?
Death never really scared me, it will happen to everyone soon or later, we have to face it and accept it, we all have our time on earth. In that way I match the Balinese by seeing death as a normal part of life. Here death people reborn in babies and so their spirits are never really gone.
Because Julia is raised in a death-positive environment, I believe that her question was more about curiosity since Kak was the first person closed to her to die.
I explored the idea of telling her that Kak was gone to the sky, that’s what French adults will say to their children. For most, death is seen as a scary thing and a very sad time. I didn’t want her to be sad, neither I wanted to lie to her with a ‘Kak is going to sleep for a very long time’.
‘ maman, where is Kak, she asked me again with curiosity.
As my eyes fell on a faded Marigold from the daily offering, I have found my answer.
“well, Kak stopped breathing, that’s what happens when we get old and so our body altogether stop working. Kak body is out of order and, you see, when we stop breathing, we go back to the ground and our spirit settle in a beautiful and bright flower. Then the flower fades and it’s roots become another flower. The new flower blooms and then fades, and another one blooms, and so on, and so on”.
My daughter seemed pleased enough with this answer and I was happy to see that she showed little sadness during the next days. With the raining season starting, our garden was soon blooming with new and tall flowers.
As Julia looked at a bright orange heliconia she asked me if Kak was there.
Kak dies of his old age, below is a picture of my husband family, washing the body as it should be done according to Balinese culture before the cremation. Cremations are usually happy events since Balinese believe in reincarnation, besides, offerings are presented to the various gods and demons in order to keep the spirits of the dead in a good place.
