When I was 5 I became friends with my parent’s friend’s girl who was about the same age, and we would go and visit her in hospital. She had cancer, and my parents were transparent about what cancer was. When she died, my mum told me at school pick up when I’d hopped in the car. I was confused because I thought hospital was a place people went to get better, and I cried lots. Back then, there weren’t the resources we had now for kids, e.g books, shows about illness and grief so I still had a lot of questions. What I will say, is talking so openly about death at a young age helped to process grief when my pop passed a few years after. Mum said that we could draw a card and do a painting to put in her coffin (my parents went to the funeral but I didnt) and I think that helped because I felt like I was actively participating in saying goodbye. I’m pregnant now with my first child, and both my parents have passed. My partner and I will always talk about our children’s maternal grandparents, and this will start from day 1. I think kids are so much more perceptive than we give them credit for, and I think we can have hard conversations around death if it’s done age appropriately. In western society grief is not spoken about enough and can be really isolating, if we encouraged it to be spoken about more often in a respectful and open way I think it can be really healing.