The death of a child

The death of a child is one of the most disturbing, shocking, unacceptable events that can occur. There is the tendency to say 'Not in front of the children' when discussing death, and thus attempt to protect children. The dying-death situation is not intimately known to many people. It is, therefore, a tempting screen on which to project aspirations and fantasies that have no other place to be displayed'. The development towards a spiritual approach seems then to be not only a reaction to the taboo on death, and to the technological approach to health care and death, but, ironically, has similarities to the denial of death. Death is not only bound up with the actual experience of loss, but is symbolized in many different ways that are commonplace and ordinary. Death is an aspect of decay, disease, damage, and the passing of the seasons.