This Sevillian, who has been touring Spain for 20 years with her tales and stories, advises avoiding the taboo of death and talking about it Avoiding talking about death can cause more painful incomplete duels, warns What is Samhain and why did it give rise to Halloween“ I remember the number of euphemisms with which they have always spoken to me about the loss of those who have been close to me and that anger that the pain of absence caused me, together with the misunderstanding of what they were telling me”, he explains to NIUS. he has gone, he is no longer there, he went up to heaven… explanations that skip the fact of dying itself and with it, of being able to fit it in and have the right to a farewell, he points out. “We all have a box of taboos in which we put the things we are not capable of talking about and death is one of them,” he explains to a group of children who watch one of his performances absorbed. “I allow myself the opportunity to speak and mention death, which is not something usual for them”, he points out. And that, inevitably, generates interest and attraction. It shows in their faces and reactions. “There is no rejection, no excruciating fear. On the contrary, they are thirsty for stories”. How to explain to a child what death is But how do you talk to a child about death? “First of all, I am equal to them. I explain to them that I have also had an experience like this and that it caused me great inconsistency not to understand why, for example, my pet had left, ”she points out. The uncertainty is greater when it comes to a loved one. “The little ones don’t understand why Grandma is sick and we can’t go to see her at the hospital or the funeral home that don’t even know what she is, or the cemetery. It’s all very foreign to them”, she laments. To bring them closer to her, this narrator deals with death in a polyhedral way, that is, from different points of view, just as oral tradition has narrated it. “I’m talking about mocked death that allows us to laugh at it, it’s a perspective that heals people who, for example, suffer from illnesses; or just death: the one that does not distinguish between age, sex, or condition. He has no preferences. It reaches everyone and that is why it is fair. Or irrevocable death: there is no remedy. This is the one that saddens us”, she points out. Alicia Bululú is in favor of speaking openly about the subject. “Our cognitive, symbolic, maturational and emotional development before the age of 6 is not prepared to understand what it is, but it does not mean that we cannot talk about it,” she warns. Death must be present in the stories or in our daily lives, otherwise, in the long run, it will be counterproductive and increase the pain. “By avoiding it, we take away their right to mourn. It will be an incomplete process based on perceiving absences, much more complex”, she points out. Plants and the animal world, a good resource This pedagogue recommends, for this, appealing to life. “Explain that it has a beginning and an end,” she says. And use the world of animals and plants that is much closer to them. “It is easier for them to understand that a plant has withered than not that their father or mother will one day die,” he explains. It is from the age of 6 that children discover that people are also ephemeral and it is important, he insists, to have prepared them for this moment. “Having talked about it, having had plants at home that have dried up or nearby animals that have disappeared. Or in a movie or story, you have to talk about it. And if we don’t have answers, she remembers, nothing happens. “We can ask ourselves: Why do you ask me? What worries you? Let’s investigate it, think about it,…”Halloween distances us from the concept of deathUnlike what it may seem, the celebration of Halloween distances us, according to this narrator, of talking about death.”It separates us from our tradition of the Day of the Dead, which is a beautiful occasion to go to the cemetery, accompany the relatives who left, remember them, take a walk, bring them flowers…”, she points out. This celebration, imported from the USA, focuses more on a dreamlike universe of “spirits and fears”, which has nothing to do with the feast of the dead which, insists the pedagogue, is a good opportunity to talk to the little ones about the death, in a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere.