heavenLike her sister Ruth, Camille had totally repudiated her family's Catholicism—and along with it all of Christianity and indeed all religion—as rank superstition. No god, no soul. A lawyer, Camille was determined to raise her daughter Vera, her only child, as a rationalist. No myths, no fairy tales. As I recollect and record this story, I am reminded of the no-nonsense mother of the little girl in the old movie Miracle on 34th Street:
“Vera, I told you—there is no such thing as Santa Claus!”
That was Camille. Then when Vera was almost four there was an accident and an unexpected and tragic death in the extended family. Her grandmother had been grievously injured and hospitalized in critical condition—she was not expected to live—and her grandfather had been killed. There was the funeral and then many anxious visits to the hospital.
"Mommy, what happens to people when they die?" Vera asked her mother.
Bravely, Camille accepted the challenge. She explained the process of dying and death as tactfully, as sensitively, and yet as scientifically and truthfully as she could. Life, she explained to her daughter, is extinguished. There is an end to suffering and pain. We return to the earth and become one with nature. Slowly, gradually, over time there is a decomposition, a return to chemistry. For the survivors, for the living, there remain love and precious memory.
“Yes, yes, but the body?”
Alas, ultimately it seemed there was no avoiding the bottom line, the down and dirty nitty-gritty, and to Camille it seemed best to present simply and directly the hard plain unvarnished truth.
"People dig a hole in the ground and put the body in it and cover it up with dirt."
"In a hole!" Vera shrieked.
Incredulous, she burst into tears. Off and on and off and on again for hours that day and evening she sobbed, she cried, she was inconsolable, and off and on the next day, more tears, and still more tears the next, until slowly, gradually, finally, her agony had been spent.
Camille told me this story in my kitchen as I dried and put away the dinner dishes. She and I had known each other for years. My beliefs were no secret. I did not attend church. I considered the stories of Eden and Adam and Eve and Noah profound parables and allegory, not world history. Though I admired his life and teaching and especially his courage I did not consider Jesus a god. Nor did I, she knew, believe in a benevolent parental deity, a heavenly father. A freethinker, in general I subscribed to a Buddhist nontheism and to the concepts of no god, no soul, no self, and emptiness. Camille knew that I was no Christian. But still as a mother she felt that in this instance she had failed her daughter.
"What would you have said?" she asked me finally.
"Oh, I always just tell children that we go to heaven," I said.
Her jaw dropped like a cartoon. She set her hands on her hips and glared at me in mock disgust—which made me laugh. I had no idea what to say. I held up my open, empty hands in an exaggerated gesture of helplessness and tried to look really stupid. I wasn’t acting.
"Well," I apologized, sheepishly, "in a way I believe we do." “Vera, I told you—there is no such thing as Santa Claus!”
That was Camille. Then when Vera was almost four there was an accident and an unexpected and tragic death in the extended family. Her grandmother had been grievously injured and hospitalized in critical condition—she was not expected to live—and her grandfather had been killed. There was the funeral and then many anxious visits to the hospital.
"Mommy, what happens to people when they die?" Vera asked her mother.
Bravely, Camille accepted the challenge. She explained the process of dying and death as tactfully, as sensitively, and yet as scientifically and truthfully as she could. Life, she explained to her daughter, is extinguished. There is an end to suffering and pain. We return to the earth and become one with nature. Slowly, gradually, over time there is a decomposition, a return to chemistry. For the survivors, for the living, there remain love and precious memory.
“Yes, yes, but the body?”
Alas, ultimately it seemed there was no avoiding the bottom line, the down and dirty nitty-gritty, and to Camille it seemed best to present simply and directly the hard plain unvarnished truth.
"People dig a hole in the ground and put the body in it and cover it up with dirt."
"In a hole!" Vera shrieked.
Incredulous, she burst into tears. Off and on and off and on again for hours that day and evening she sobbed, she cried, she was inconsolable, and off and on the next day, more tears, and still more tears the next, until slowly, gradually, finally, her agony had been spent.
Camille told me this story in my kitchen as I dried and put away the dinner dishes. She and I had known each other for years. My beliefs were no secret. I did not attend church. I considered the stories of Eden and Adam and Eve and Noah profound parables and allegory, not world history. Though I admired his life and teaching and especially his courage I did not consider Jesus a god. Nor did I, she knew, believe in a benevolent parental deity, a heavenly father. A freethinker, in general I subscribed to a Buddhist nontheism and to the concepts of no god, no soul, no self, and emptiness. Camille knew that I was no Christian. But still as a mother she felt that in this instance she had failed her daughter.
"What would you have said?" she asked me finally.
"Oh, I always just tell children that we go to heaven," I said.
Her jaw dropped like a cartoon. She set her hands on her hips and glared at me in mock disgust—which made me laugh. I had no idea what to say. I held up my open, empty hands in an exaggerated gesture of helplessness and tried to look really stupid. I wasn’t acting.
In a way I believe we do.
