Circle of life...

"So what happens to the body and the coffin after it gets buried?" I ask. "Does it stay in the grave forever?"
Mummy thinks for a bit, then she says, "I know, let's go to the woods. See these leaves? In summer, they are all nice and green. But now, in autumn, they are changing colour and are falling to the ground. When it starts to get cold, they go all soft and crumbly and, eventually, turn into soil. This helps the plants grow. It's the same with a dead body. It takes a long time, but after it gets buried, it slowly turns into soil and helps feed plants and trees."
"Wow," I say. "That's really cool."

This is no ordinary, beautifully illustrated, children's book. This is a book written by a remarkable mum and four year old boy making sense of the world after the sudden death of their husband and father. These are the actual questions Alex asked his mum and the words his mum gave him to help him understand.

Elke, searched for a book to help her children manage the sudden death of their father only to find there wasn't any. She decided to write one herself, "Is Daddy coming home in a minute?" and went on to write a second book "What happened to Daddy's body?". Both these books were crowd funded and you can read more of Elke's incredible journey battling breast cancer and getting these books published here.

Today we were at a difficult funeral of someone who was taken too soon and today Elke gave me my copy of this, it is aimed at very young children but it is comforting for all ages. :-)