Nikki Sian-Leigh Aksamit lost her unborn child after a car crash and struggled how to tell her kids what had happened. Her book, "Mommy, what is dead" explains death to pre-schoolers. (Image courtesy of Nikki Sian-Leigh Aksamit)

One day, a car raced through a yellow light and slammed into Nikki Sian-Leigh Aksamit’s vehicle. She was a mother of two and six weeks pregnant. The trauma of the accident eventually killed her unborn child. Her two boys wanted to know what had happened to the baby and Nikki struggled for a way to tell them. Finding no children’s book fit for the task, she wrote her own, “Mommy, what is dead?” Digital Dying recently spoke with Nikki on how to talk to children about death.

How did you tell your kids that your unborn child had died?

Rook, my four year-old, knew right away. “Mom, what’s wrong?” he asked. I said, “The baby died.” He said, “What do you mean it died. Why did it have to die?” I said, “The accident caused mommy to lose the baby.” He was just so full of questions. I was at a loss for words. My husband and I answered him the best we could, but I don’t think he got it. Two weeks later, I wrote out questions and what I wanted the pictures to be with a magic marker and construction paper. It probably took a good month and half to finish the book. Then I read it to him. It was just my scribbles, a way to purge myself, but he got it right away.

There were no good children’s books on death?

If you look at children’s books on death or grieving, they are stories. They are all very beautiful magical stories, but they are stories. There is nothing to explain why a body has to die, or something that explains why a baby might have died. If I thought there was something better out there, I would have used that, but I really couldn’t find anything. Everything was cute, fuzzy, bunny fluffy stories.

Can kids really understand death at such a young age?

People find it very hard to be truthful to kids because we think we’re going to hurt them. You don’t want to tell a child a body goes into the ground and gets eaten by bugs. But I tell my kids those things. That’s what they need. It’s because we hide behind death that kids are confused. My kids, at four and six, now understand what death is. They understand that when the dog dies it is in the ground, but they believe in reincarnation, and that her soul has gone on to a new dog. My son has decided that when he dies he wants to be a guinea pig.

How did you first learn about death?

My mom was the starving cat picker upper so I was always surrounded by death while growing up. Mom was really good at explaining why it happened. She also gave us room to do our own thing. She was a single mother and she let me do what I wanted to do and I am so grateful, because it made me so much more world-wise than some of my peers.

Do you see a problem in the way in which American society in general views death?

One of the things I want to convey to the kids is there should always be a fundamental respect for human life. But, there’s not. My son gives me heck because I am a big crime show watcher. He says, “Mom, why do you watch shows about dead people?” I like to watch shows about what would make people’s minds go to that place where they could end a life. It boggles my mind that a person could think that ending a human life could be a response to anything.

I mean, holy crime rate, you can’t turn on the news without a ton of death. My son is four and he is so super-perceptive. So, we don’t have any choice but to tell our kids. Death is important and people dying is important. My son and I just had a conversation about guns and the fact that they can kill people. Death is forever, it’s not like in the cartoons and it’s not like the Xbox 360, you turn off the game and start it over. It’s like a toy, there are certain toys mommy can fix and certain toys she can’t fix. There is only so much crazy glue mommy has.

Nikki’s book, “Mommy, what is dead?” can be purchased on her website. She is working on a series of “What is” books, which will include “Mommy, what is cancer?” and “Mommy, what is autism?”

Joan Harvey has written over 10,000 obituaries. "Humans need to talk about the death," she said. "Sometimes they want to talk about the death a lot, with a lot of details." (Photo by Justin Nobel)

Joan Harvey has written over 10,000 obituaries for The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper. She now writes Life Stories for the paper, feature pieces about interesting and unknown Portland people who have just died. Digital Dying spoke with her about what it’s like to cover death for a living.

How did you begin writing obituaries?

I used to write a lot of travel and food stories. I ran into an old friend whose mother had been very nice to me as a child. I asked her how her mother was and she burst into tears. After that I started reading the obituaries. I realized their importance, not just as a source of information about a person, but as a history for the whole community.

Do you always include the cause of death?

Sometimes you don’t even know the cause of death. The death certificate says something but it isn’t always accurate. When AIDS first started, that was such a problem. People didn’t want that in, so we had a lot of 30 year-old men dying of pneumonia. But generally, when people lose somebody they want to talk, and sometimes they want to talk about the death a lot, with a lot of details. They have experienced these horrible things and no one else will listen. Other people will come over to comfort them and talk about movies. But humans need to talk about the death too.

Have you noticed any interesting death trends?

During one six-month period we noticed that we had a lot of young Pacific Islanders dying of heart attacks. So we called reporters over and they investigated but couldn’t find anything. Another time we had a lot of suicides, all young people who had been incarcerated. That was kind of interesting. It seemed coincidental, but there was never enough evidence. Also, the overdoses sometimes got interesting, and the times of year that this would happen. We always got a lot of overdoses when the weather turned nice. In Oregon, it doesn’t happen until about June. Kids get out of school and return home. But drawing something from that would be highly unscientific.

What are some of the job’s difficulties?

I have had a couple really hard ones lately, just because of dysfunctional families. I always do a criminal check on the deceased and their spouse. This one woman I wrote about who died of cancer had a husband who had a big record and a lot of DWI’s. He had died a few months before her, probably of a heart attack. One of the daughters came home and found him dead and tried to perform CPR. It was just awful for these girls. I was thinking not to write it but eventually I decided to. I told the kids that I would have to mention the father’s DWIs and cleared it with the older teenage daughter. I wrote that the father had battled alcoholism and a gambling addiction. His family went berserk.

Another big problem is writing about a person’s weight. One woman I wrote about had been struck by cars three times. Finally, one killed her. She had a big weight problem. It was a big thing to her, she kept joining Weight Watchers. When the piece came out her family and friends were fine with it but other people who knew her marginally, or didn’t even know her, said, ‘Oh my goodness, you shouldn’t say that!’ You can say all kinds of things, but not that someone is overweight.

How does the obit beat compare to writing for other sections of the newspaper?

I love my job; it’s as varied as people’s lives. If I write about a woman who is a hot-rodder I need to learn about hot rods. Currently, I am writing about a Chinese woman who was a gardener. She had a lot of classical plants, like bonsai. I had to learn the difference between the Japanese and Chinese names. Someone covering City Hall has to really delve into one thing. At the end of the week, I can forget about hotrods and bonsais.

Has writing obits changed the way you consider death?

In the office, we have our usual files on strange ways to die and 250 obit clichés, such as, Going to the golf course in the sky. There is the typical morbid humor, and the death pools; you start January 1st, trying to guess who is going to die that year. But I don’t write that much about death, I’m writing about people’s lives. Some reporters have to do a story an hour after someone is shot or a child has drowned, that’s much more difficult.

I think about things as they relate to death, but I don’t obsess. When I get an honor I will say, “Oh, that’s good on the obituary.”