Permanence

Do any of us truly understand permanence?  There's a line in Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where Helena Bonham Carter says "sometimes when adults say forever, they mean a very very long time'".   Our forever is a perception issue, just like when we have an argument and say "I'm never talking to you again.   Permanence in most of our lives is maleable.  It has flex.  We can change our minds, or create solutions to indulge our needs.  So it's no wonder that we grieve so deeply when someone dies.  We have lost our control over finality, we are powerless to change the discourse by offering solutions or apologies.   When we suffer a relationship breakdown, we suffer a form of grief.  We mourn what once was, but closure is in the eye of the beholder.   An ex partner for instance may still harbour hope that one day they will reconcile.  Death shatters all illusions,  there is no hope - we dream of meeting again, we dream of waking up in another world where our loved one still exists.

Children find permanence a particular challenge.  This is largely down to an inability to explain what death is in age appropriate terms.   If you start mentioning sleep,  "nanny is sleeping forever" a child's forever could be til next week.  There is no finality in sleeping, nanny is probably going to wake up at some point.  We try to tell children that when someone dies they no longer breathe or smile, their skin is cold, they no longer need to eat.   But this still doesn't explain forever,  and do we ourselves actually understand this either?   The concept of losing a child in particular is a terrifying thought for parent and sibling.  It bends the rules of modern society, medicine, mother nature and mortality and rips open taboo.  The parent has to accept that they will live beyond their child, that they created life and then watched its untimely demise.  They were powerless to stop it and powerless to change it.   Siblings have to negotiate a less innocent existence.  They have to grasp permanence, that forever is at least beyond all future experiences,  and this is the best that us adults can do too.   We will mourn our loss for the length and breadth of our lives, and after that - forever becomes someone else's game.