Death of a child

Well, what *I* would do is different from what other people might do. What is your character like? For example, a poor person might have a different response from a rich person, even if the pain is the same. And emotionally, there are some who want to sweep things away as soon as possible because they can't bear looking at them, while some people can't bear to let anything go.

leahutinet said:

Your 16-year-old son dies. What do you do with his room? Do you leave it exactly as he'd left it before he died? Do you put everything away so nothing will remind you of his death?

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Just what I'd do, with no input from anyone else in the family, I'd leave it closed for a few weeks until I could stand to look at it again, then clean it out, figure out what keepsakes were worth keeping, then leave the room empty until further life developments meant the family needed that space for other things.

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

When Mr. Siri's grandparents lost their son, one of them wanted to make a shrine (metaphorically) and the other wanted to get on with life. (No, the marriage didn't last.)

So, depends on the person.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

Echoing the "it would depend on the character", with an added "it might depend on the situation and setting."

If, say, the characters are from a class with strict social circles, and the son died under questionable circumstances that might be construed as shameful to the family name, I could see the parents quickly removing all trace of him from the home; any mementos kept (by a parent who can't openly grieve) would have to be small and secret.

If the child suffered a long illness, maybe there would've been more time to say goodbye, and there might possibly be more acceptance of the death, readiness to move on.

If the child was murdered (or if at least one parent believed they were), they might insist on keeping everything as-is, like an amateur criminologist poring over a crime scene, perhaps obsessively going through items and trying to figure out who, or why...

IOW, you know your characters and setting and circumstances more than we ever will. What works best for your story? (If you're looking for general grief reactions, have you looked online or searched your local library for material on coping with death?)

My parents died 23 and 19 years ago.

My brother hasn't been able to bring himself to sell the house because he can't deal with the memories. I've been done with the thing for years.

Consider what Siri suggested. One parent might want and need to move on, but the other can't, or just won't. What will that friction do to the relationship? Especially if the one who moves on starts putting away things that remind her of the child?

I think it might depend too on the circumstances of his death. Was it suicide? Murder? A negligent accident? A long illness like cancer? Was there a body to bury? Is he really dead, or just missing and presumed dead? My instinct is that parents of a mssing child are going to be less likely to clean out the room than those who know he's dead and never coming home. If it was an illness and there's lots of medical paraphanalia, they might get rid of the medical stuff right away, but leave the room as it was, at least for a while.

There are likely many different ways people deal with this. I think it would depend, to some extent, on the personality of the character in question. Are they the kind of person who likes to deal with things right away, or are they someone who hates visual reminders of sadness? Or are they the kind of person who is more sentimental about things if those things are associated with something or someone they love? Some people need to talk about and think about the person they've lost, and the memories make them feel better, as if the person still isn't too far away. Others get even sadder (or angry) if someone even mentions their loss or wants to talk about the person who is no longer there (I've run across friends on FB, for instance, who have asked for fond memories to not be shared on their wall).

I've read books where a protagonist who had lost a child left the room as sort of a frozen-in-time shrine, for years, and others where someone left their lost child's room closed up and unchanged because they couldn't stand to go in and clean it out. I suspect some people would wait a while, maybe even years, before cleaning it. Others might do so sooner, maybe even right away, in an attempt to remove the constant reminder of their loss. When my dad died, my mom waited about a year, then cleaned out his closets and the garage (his workshop) and gave the things she couldn't use and didn't want to keep to charities. She left his model airplanes are still hanging up in his old bedroom, though. It's possible a parent might keep a few things that especially remind them of their child in that way.

I'm not exactly sure what I'd do personally, not having children. Given my penchant for procrastination and for holding on to things that have memories for me, I'd probably wait a long time, maybe even years, to deal with my lost child's possessions and room. Unless someone really pressured me to deal with it sooner.

Note: Brightdreamer makes a good point too; the circumstances of the death could also have an effect.

My youngest sister died in March this year, she was 22. In the week following my mum refused to go into her room, I don't think she's been in there still. Dad pulled himself together and went in there with me and we went through her things to find photos and pieces of her writing to share at the funeral. Since then its remain un touch, door closed. I go in every time I visit to sit in there with her pet dog.

My parents are not in financial difficulty, so the room can remain as is for a very long time. For your story, i think a finical burden may push the parents to repurpose the room at some point. Maybe they need to sell the house? maybe another sibling needs to move in, maybe they need to downside.

Another reason they may go in there is if the person in your story was murdered, this may push the parents to look for clues, or the truth. My sister committed suicide so its just too painful to go in there.

leahutinet said:

Your 16-year-old son dies. What do you do with his room? Do you leave it exactly as he'd left it before he died? Do you put everything away so nothing will remind you of his death?

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What do I do or what does your character do? I'm not your character, I don't have the same motivation or needs and It's not my story you're trying to tell. Your character needs to do what his or her motives and needs dictate, as modified by what you need for the story.

Jeff

I don't know if this is relevant to your particular story because, as others have said, it would depend on a lot of factors (circumstances of death, grieving parent's personality, possibly pressure from other people to move on, etc) but my first thought upon reading the question was this sweet and touching story on NPR.

(I highly recommend listening to the audio).

I'm so sorry to hear that Cae-sar. I remember hearing my mother one time say that if she had lost a child she would close our bedroom doors. She wouldn't be able to go in there, and she would take the baby pictures off the wall downstairs. My parents sleep downstairs and my sister and I are upstairs, so my mother could leave my room untouched for years. In fact, there would probably be very little reason for them to go through my things. They'd probably leave a lot of it, save for my clothes. I don't own a lot of trinkets, it's all office stuff, notebooks and books. My sister's got a whirlwind of crazy going on her room though. I don't even know what's in there. Lol.