I’ve got a 4 year old and 3 year old.
Last year both of my wife’s Grandparent’s that were still alive died. One was 90 and died of cancer and the other was 85 and died of alzheimers.
We are not religious (I’m an athiest) and after a couple of hours of discussion with my wife, we decided to make death less scary by explaining that they were both very old and that they had gone to heaven. We explained that when people die and go to heaven, that we don’t see them again until we die. Both girls accepted this and accepted that death is not a horrible thing. We just didn’t want scare them. We also explained that heaven was high up in the sky. Although we didn’t say it, we made heaven appear flowery and pink (Well that’s what they like).
The girls are very resilient and they didn’t question what we had told them at the time. However we knew that they were thinking it over and in time they threw some curve balls at us! A few weeks or months later, my eldest asked if we could sent letters to heaven. We again explained that you could only go to heaven when you die. She then stated as a matter of fact that the postman must be able to get back because he would have to deliver the letters. She also asked if she could go and have a look at heaven.
The only downside is that on one or two occassions my eldest has publicly embarrassed me. I was in Sainsburys one day and there was an elderly gentleman in front of men at the till. My daughter asked out loud “Is that man going to die soon?”. If there had been a rock, I would have crawled under it! I was just hoping that due to his age that his hearing might not be that good! 😉