DS is nearly 6, and is currently being assessed for Aspergers. He's a very sensitive child and tends to catastrophise.
The summer before last, so 22 months ago now, we had DDog2 PTS - DDog1 died when DS was too young to really understand, and we still have DDog3. I didn't handle it very well. He had very longstanding ill health and I had brought it up with DS in advance (turned out to be a couple of months in advance) that DDog would die at some point, wanting to sort of prepare him I guess. He normally likes time to process stuff, hates being taken by surprise, so I thought I was doing the right thing, but I did get a bit upset myself while telling him and he started sobbing, and this seemed to fix it in his mind as a terrible thing - he kept getting upset and asking me when etc. Then when the time came, DS was devastated. DDog was a little worse one evening, I took him to the vet, on the way he deteriorated rapidly and he never came home. I found it hard, and we cried together, and I kept reassuring him it is ok to be sad, but that time will help us feel better, and we'll always remember the good stuff, etc. He kept saying, "He'll come back, won't he?" and " is dead, isn't he?" and so on.
Ever since, he's been hyper sensitive about death. He stopped me reading a history book to him as it referenced death too often - nothing gory or emotional, just factual, but it upset him. He keeps asking about animals dying for meat etc, how they die, even though he'll happily watch nature documentaries with predators hunting etc. He's just been playing with DH with some figurines and DS had one of them die, then burst into tears. DH tried to reassure him, but it took ages for him to settle. I tried to lightly reassure him later as it didn't feel 'dealt with', only that he'd distracted himself, and he cried again and told me off for reminding him.
Has DDog's death scarred him? How do I handle this? He's emotionally immature, and struggles to understand, name or handle his emotions even though he's academically reasonably bright, and I just don't know how to approach this with him. It's complicated by the fact DH is strongly against any teaching of Heaven etc, though I have introduced it as a "some people believe" type thing. Any time I try to talk he gets upset, so books etc don't seem a great idea. Help!