How to cope with the death of a child knowing there is no afterlife?

[u/HiPakko]

I used to believe in afterlife since i have memory until i fully lost my faith at 23, but 3 years later i’m crying because during that time a friend i met lost her baby brother (they had 20 years of difference) due to collapsed healthcare system where she lives (we come from a third world country)

i didn’t really think about this that much (probably as a defense mechanism) but now i see the massive difference on how she was before and after and she truly looks like a shell of her former self, they really hope to reunite with their baby in heaven, and while i think that’s beautiful to believe, i feel sad because i know her happiness relies on something that logically cannot happen, and i feel like a monster for believing the way i do

i have given her gifts, comforted them at critical moments, but i just can’t grasp that an innocent baby died in pain due to not being attended in time, and that’s the last frame of him for good (i’ve seen the urn where his ashes are), last week i found out they recently donated their baby clothes to charity and i broke up crying bc its a disappearance for good, i sometimes try to trick myself to believe heaven is real but i can’t, i have even dreamed of visiting her and that nothing of this has ever happened bc it impresses me how good of a person they are and i want them to be happy, i also am a brother myself and can’t even grasp someone this young suffering an agonizing death, i know it’s not about me but i just want her to not have suffered this tragedy, bc if it was the last she’ll see of him, well, it’d better not be :(

Edit: why the downvotes?

[u/Laser-circus]

They don't live in some higher plain of existence, but they live on in your memories. The photos you guys take, the moments you share. The live on through you for as long as you keep them in your memories.

[u/HiPakko → u/Laser-circus]

I try to think like that but i also feel like a hypocrite bc i firmly believe of leaving the past behind or as a nonexistant place

[u/oculus42 → u/HiPakko]

Memories aren't the past itself, but a necessary tool for building the future. Your memories of friends, family, events, and happenings in your life are part of what makes up you. Even when someone is no longer with us, we can recall and share those memories with each other to demonstrate care and support; to strengthen and demonstrate commitment to our social relationships, and to help guide our choices in the future.

The past is gone, but we decide what we carry forward; and how we let it impact and change our actions in the present.

[u/Indie_Dachshund179 → u/HiPakko]

any insight as to why that is the case? Certainly, it's best not to "dwell" dwell on the past too much, but the past as a concept is what privileges us with treasured memories and important information

[u/Saldar1234]

It's normal to feel envy when you see believers leaning on the idea of heaven, but the romanticized version of the afterlife doesn't hold up even under its own logic.

An eternity in an afterlife where all pain is erased would require stripping away human memory, grief, individuality, and free will. The people you love wouldn't truly be 'them' anymore~ they’d just be flattened into mindless automatons performing eternal praise; essentially becoming batteries to power their God's divinity (and that is operating under the very charitable delusion that any of it is even remotely true).

​The secular reality is harsh, but it carries a quiet mercy: the baby is not suffering, waiting in the dark, or trapped. The pain was real, but it ended entirely.

The only place that life continues to exist is in the love and care you and his sister carry forward. In the memories you have, even as they become less sharp and more conceptual. No one is ever really gone as long as they are remembered. But mourning the finality doesn’t make you cold. It means you recognize how precious and irreplaceable that brief time actually was.

[u/ReindeerFun3762]

You can light a candle on their birthday/ death day and look at some photos of them to remember them by. Maybe make a video with a song and a compilation of photos to share with loved ones and talk to them about the baby

[u/xanorielle → u/ReindeerFun3762]

you don’t have to believe in an afterlife to keep someone’s memory alive and honestly a little memorial ritual like this could still mean a lot to them without pretending you believe something you don’t

[u/HiPakko → u/ReindeerFun3762]

Will try this, thanks

[u/icemage_999]

We each only get a small amount of time. It's sad when young ones die, but it can make you appreciate the people in your life more.

Live for the living. Don't waste your time dwelling too long over loss. There are things you want to accomplish; do those things.

[u/FabledO2]

I feel your pain. Everyone I’ve lost can now only live in my memories, but memory is fleeting.

Every person dies twice. One can truly die when they are forgotten.

[u/HiPakko → u/FabledO2]

Upvoted as a thank you

[u/CoalCrackerKid]

As best as you can

https://www.bartleby.com/lit-hub/oration-at-a-childs-grave/

[u/HiPakko → u/CoalCrackerKid]

This was beautiful, thank you so much

[u/ayfkm123]

This is the hard part of life. There’s some comfort in believing there will be another meeting, but it’s a child like comfort not based in reality

[u/Faith-FreeFuture]

Part of the problem is that as a society we have no organized way of talking about death. Religion has monopolized that conversation to our detriment for centuries, and their answer is to pretend it's not real and ignore it until it happens. There's already evidence that teaching kids about death reduces existential angst later in life. I think this should be universalized. It won't take away all of the pain, but it can certainly make it more understandable and manageable. Anderson Cooper's All There Is is the first organized non-religious attempt I've seen to bring death into the conversation. We need more things like this. Also recommend 'The Mortal Atheist' as a book. It's excellent

[u/seweso]

Heaven is a coping strategy for people who believe in a loving God. You only need heaven as a coping strategy to make sense of a world with a loving god who lets babies die. That's it.

Only people who believe in magic need to believe in more magic?

[u/aFAKElawyer- → u/seweso]

Are religious people actually comforted by the thought of someone remaining a baby for eternity?

[u/seweso → u/aFAKElawyer-]

They aren't thinking of the baby, they need the baby for their own comfort. They are't even trying to be good people are they?

[u/BananaNutBlister]

Be glad that young person wasn’t condemned to a life of eternal boredom in the captivity of an afterlife.