GIRL: I'm drawing on my wall.
I like drawing flowers because my mom really liked flowers
and she really liked purple.
So I imagine them sometimes as purple.
My Dad thought it's a really good way to get your emotions
out and help you just feel better.
GIRL: My mom was pretty and she was very smart and she
loved to Rollerblade.
And she had to cut her hair because she had breast cancer.
KATIE COURIC: We're about to talk about a subject that's
really hard to talk about.
It's a topic that's very sensitive and emotional, but
unfortunately, affects many people, the
death of a loved one.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
BOY: My dad was a soldier.
WOMAN: I didn't have the heart to really tell them that their
dad was not going to come home.
My mother did it for me.
She sat them all down on a bed.
She told him, your dad's not coming home.
And my son said, why grandma?
And they're like because your daddy was killed in Iraq.
ELMO: Miss Katie, Miss Katie.
KATIE COURIC: Elmo!
It's so good to see you.
It's been so long.
I've missed your red, furry face.
ELMO: It's good to see Miss Katie too.
KATIE COURIC: I thought your cousin Jesse
was coming with you?
ELMO: Oh, she'll be here soon.
KATIE COURIC: Oh good because I wanted to see how you two
were doing because I heard you had some sad
news in your family.
ELMO: Yeah.
Yeah.
Elmo's Uncle Jack die.
KATIE COURIC: I'm so sorry to hear that, Elmo.
ELMO: Oh, here's a picture of him.
KATIE COURIC: Oh.
ELMO: See?
KATIE COURIC: There's Uncle Jack and he is your dad
Louie's brother, right?
ELMO: Yeah.
Cousin Jesse's daddy.
KATIE COURIC: This is such a nice picture, Elmo.
ELMO: Yeah.
Elmo really misses Uncle Jack.
LOUIE: Yeah my brother, oh, he sure did love baseball.
ELMO: Yeah.
LOUIE: And he loved teaching you how to play.
He was so proud of you that day he gave you the cap right
off his head.
ELMO: Elmo can't wait to see Uncle Jack and
show it to him today.
LOUIE: Son, son, can I--
ELMO: Yeah, Daddy?
LOUIE: He won't be there.
Do you remember how we talked about your Uncle Jack?
He died.
ELMO: Oh yeah.
Elmo can just show it to Uncle Jack next time.
LOUIE: I'm afraid not, son.
ELMO: But Elmo can call him on the phone, right?
LOUIE: No, son.
You see, when someone dies, it means
they're not alive anymore.
Their body has stopped working.
They don't eat or breathe or talk on the phone.
ELMO: Oh.
LOUIE: Uncle Jack died.
KATIE COURIC: It's so hard to get used to the idea that
someone you love just isn't going to be there.
ELMO: Yeah.
GIRL: I was very sad and mad because I knew he wasn't going
to be here anymore and I just didn't know what to do.
WOMAN: Sometimes we would scream in the pillow.
We would just out the pillow up to our
faces and just scream.
Just so that you could get it all out.
GIRL: One of my teachers, she had lost her dad too and she
said that she would always write letters to him.
And then I started writing letters and that
made me feel better.
BOY: My dad was really funny and likable and he had a lot
of friends.
BOY: My dad was a helicopter pilot in the Marine Corps.
He had to deploy a lot.
And he'd be gone for like months at a time.
WOMAN: How do you tell an eight-year-old and a
10-year-old that their dad had made it safely back from Iraq
and then taken his own life?
BOY: I think the best way to cope with feelings is to just
talk to somebody and just say everything that you're feeling
and why you're feel that.
It's like a towel.
If it's wet, it's going to weigh you down.
You need to wring it out.
WOMAN: We do a lot of things to try to
keep this memory alive.
He's everywhere, really.
He's in the ocean and he's in the sky.
BOY: My dad was a major, so we named the dog major.
Major was born on the anniversary of his death.
So so many connections all around us that really keeps
him here, I think.
MAN AND WOMAN: [SINGING]
I know that times are sad.
Don't know how you'll make it through.
Someone you love is gone, forever.
Think of the time you had and remember love so true.
Share in the memories might help me too.
Cause our hearts will just grow fonder by remembering.
And our love will always find new heights to climb.
If someone you love is gone, you are always going to find
that you need to give your heart a little time.
You need to give your heart a little time.
ANNOUNCER: Major support for this Sesame Street special
provided by Defense Centers of Excellence For Psychological
Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, BAE Systems, Iraq
Afghanistan Deployment Impact Fund of the California
Community Foundation.
Additional support provided by--
ongoing support by Walmart.