Dani died two days ago. The family gathered on a Saturday afternoon at Dani’s old house in Loresho, a Nairobi suburb. The parking lot was full and the cars had spilled onto the roadside, outside the imposing maroon metal gate. Dani had been a widow for two decades and it was evident that she was loved. As the matriarch of  the family, everyone seemed to hold a special memory of this bungalow and her sudden absence sparked a family reunion that had the hallmarks of a celebration amidst the mourning. She had just turned 90, but no one had suspected she would be gone barely three months after celebrating a spirited 90th birthday. 

All her children arrived, a contingent of uncles, aunties, cousins, nephews, nieces, and friends who appeared as though responding to a family roll call.  

The home was buzzing with activity, with every room having an assembly of people. Tanya, Dani’s granddaughter had drifted away from the pack of children playing hide and seek between the cars in the front yard. Dani’s brown chair by the window was empty and beside it on a low stool, sat her weathered, black leather-bound Bible. 

Tanya wondered where she had gone. In Dani’s room upstairs, she found her bed empty, her aunties crying, holding each other and her older cousin hushed her out of the room when she asked why they were crying. She had looked for Dani throughout the house, moving through the crowd of people into the sprawling backyard and in the corner under the shade of tall trees, she spotted her favourite uncle and someone she didn’t recognise.

Oti was Dani’s youngest, the baby of the family who’d married less than a year ago, in part, due to the pressure of his mother who had threatened several times, 

“You better marry Nya Kigali before I die?”  

Oti was with Mash, his best man at his wedding and they had been friends since college. They were reminiscing about the wedding and how happy Dani had been at the event when they noticed Tanya running towards them. Mash hurriedly threw his half-smoked cigarette onto the ground and squashed it, keeping his shoe over the cigarette butt.

Tanya was Oti’s brother’s last born child and she was different from other kids in the family. At 5 she was fiercely independent and curious. She liked to hang around grown-ups. 

“Uncle OT”.

“My little princess”

“I was looking for you everywhere, what are you doing here?”

“I’m talking to my friend… This is uncle Mash?”

Mash stretched out his hand for a high five

“Hello little one, what’s your name?”

Tanya ignored his hand and gave him a sharp-side eye,

“Daddy says, smoking is dangerous”

Mash lowered his gaze, surprised by the disapproving tone. Oti smiled broadly suppressing a chuckle but Tanya had moved on to the next topic.

“Where is Dani? There are many peoples in her house but she is not in her chair”

Oti quickly deduced that no one had told the toddler about her grandmother’s demise, and voiced the first thought that crossed his mind,  

“Your Dani has gone to sleep?”

“We should wake her up then, all the peoples are here?” 

Mash raised his eyebrows in Oti’s direction 

Oti stuttered, “Well, I don’t think she can wake up from this kind of sleep, let say, she is finally resting”

Tanya pushed back

“Dani is resting all the time, mummy says to wake her up to take her medicine, we should shake, shake, shake, her up”, 

Oti looked at Mash for help – How do I explain this?

Mash decided to chime in. He knelt down so he could be at eye level and lowered his voice,

“Sweetheart, what uncle Oti is trying to say is that your grandmother has gone to heaven”

“She has gone up there?” She pointed towards the heavens, her eyes scanning the open blue sky. 

Mash looked up to the sky and hesitated “Yes, and she is up there in heaven with Jesus”.

“Is she coming back today?”

Oti and Mash exchanged a glance. They couldn’t land a simple explanation of the death of a grandmother to a 5 year old. Mash was now back on his feet.

“I am telling you Gen Alpha. Pandemic babies. ChatGPT toddlers. They will show us things”.

“Who is going to give her medicine in heaven?” She rattled a half empty brown plastic bottle of Omega-3, fish oil capsules.

“Can I visit her in heaven?”

Oti took it from her and regarded it. He had forgotten who he was talking to. This was the same child that had left him stumped two months ago when she asked how his beard got onto his face and he was unable to give an explanation why only men had hair growing on their faces and why she couldn’t have one too. 

I am talking to a 5 year old. I have to think like a 5 year old. Stories. Not concepts and so he leaned back on one story he carried from childhood. 

“Tanya, your Dani has gone to be with Jesus”.

“So,so,so, Jesus is going to bring her back home to take her medicine?”

This was getting complicated. The child was relentless.

“No, she is not coming back but she will always be here with us…she lives now in our hearts forever” and the two men simultaneously raised their palms and held them gently over their chests.

Tanya regarded them for a moment, and then copied their movement and  touched her own chest. 

“Is she in here?”she asked curiously

Mash covered his mouth in contemplation. Oti started scratching his beard as he racked his brain for a response

“Yes, and you can talk to her whenever you feel like you are missing her, all you have to do is remember her”

“But I want to see her, can we visit her in heaven?”

“No sweetheart, not really. Dani is not coming back from heaven?”

“Why not? Who is going to live in Dani’s big house if she not here?”

Oti realised he was going nowhere with this line of reasoning so he decided to tell the truth and his sudden bluntness surprised his friend who had whipped out his phone and was typing a prompt in his chatbot, 

“Find me an African folktale that tells the story of death and explain it to me as if I were a 5 year old?”

“Tanya, your Dani died”

Tanya’s eyes widened. She stared at the trees behind them, as if searching for Dani’s secret hiding place. The distant shrieking of playing children sliced the air.

“Why Dani dead?”

“Because Dani’s body stopped working and it was her time to die, Tanya?”

“She is deaded, deaded?”

“Yes, she is dead and she is not going to wake up but we will always remember her in our hearts”.

She thought about it for a moment and then looked up at her uncle,

“I feel sad now”

She inched closer and her uncle stretched out his arms allowing her to sink into a warm embrace and then he lifted her up and squeezed her onto his chest. Tanya’s head slumped over his shoulder, her right thumb slipping into her mouth. Oti looked at his best friend.

“Let me find her mother” and he started walking through the house into the living room, past Dani’s chair, a throne of emptiness, towards the kitchen where women were gathered cooking. Tanya’s other hand reached towards the chair but Oti didn’t notice. 

Mash stood outside in the yard, in a contemplative mood and he reached into his pocket and lit another cigarette. The flame flickered and he took deep drag, staring into space.

P.S. This reflection on speaking to children about loss is drawn from my reflections on the ones we lost and meditations on grief, and healing. It forms part of a series of insights drawn from my upcoming book, Strength and Sorrow, where I delve deeper into these universal experiences and the pathways to finding healing amidst loss.