Yahoo Lifestyle 'A letterbox to heaven is helping my children to deal with grief'
For children experiencing their first family bereavement, it can be difficult to explain to them what has happened.
A primary school teacher from Harrogate whose own daughters had suffered the loss of their great-grandmother has given them an outlet for their feelings by helping to set up a "letterbox to heaven" in the town.
Lynsey Rogers said she was finding it difficult to talk to Daisy and Bella, who are three and five, about the death of her grandmother at the age of 85.
She said: "I just wanted to make sure, as I was upset and dealing with my own grief, that I was able to do it in the best way for them."
Anyone can use the special postbox to send letters and drawings to a relative they have lost.
Remembering her grandmother, Ms Rogers said she was an "amazing lady" and they were a "very close family unit".
"The girls were both upset - as we thought they would be - and they both wanted to draw a picture.
"Then my eldest daughter said to me: 'Well how will she get them in heaven'? and I was just a bit flummoxed to start with - I didn't know how to answer that question."
Ms Rogers took to social media to find out whether Harrogate already had a letterbox to heaven.
"It turned out we hadn't got one - and there were lots of people saying it would be lovely if we did, what a nice idea that would be."
A local funeral director then got in touch and said they would install one on the wall outside their building on Franklin Road.
Tim Canavar, from Hubert Swainson's Funeral Directors, said they had been "really surprised" by the response to the postbox.
"There's been some really good comments, people think it's such a good idea", he said.
"We were aware of some postboxes down south that some cemeteries had installed and they were proving popular - but we never really gave it a thought until Lynsey asked the question online."
Ms Rogers added: "They're quite emotional children and I'm quite an emotional person, so they really wanted to go to the postbox.
"They knew why we were going, they knew we were going to put the pictures in the postbox, it was a nice moment to go and do it.
"It, sort of, gave them a bit of closure, where their pictures were going, it finished off that bit of the puzzle I guess. It meant that they knew they had gone somewhere."
Ms Rogers said as soon as the girls got home Daisy asked whether she could post another picture.
"It's given them a way of saying goodbye. They didn't come to the funeral, we decided it was too much for them at that age, so it's given them some closure.
"But also when we do those life events, they all feel like she's included.
"My little girl asked me what she would do when it's her birthday, so I think moving forward we'll be able to put a birthday card in the box for her.
"I think it will help us, but having seen the reaction on Facebook, I think it's going to be something that helps a lot of people."
Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here.
