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Dying to Know
When my kid asked about death, I blabbed
When my oldest daughter was little, we used to go for walks through a cemetery in our neighborhood. Maybe that sounds morbid but it was the largest green space in the area and the old shade trees and cool stone markers offered respite on hot days.
My preschooler loved strolling through what she referred to as the Stone Park. One time, she asked why the stones had names carved on them. I told her it was to remember people who had died. Maybe that wasn’t the best answer to give a kid who was still a few months short of her fourth birthday, and if I’d been quicker-witted I might have said it was to commemorate those who’ve gone before us to Walla Walla, Washington, because that is certainly more fun to say. But instead, I blurted out the unspoken reality: People die. They cease to exist. They go kaput.
She asked if all people die and I said yes, but usually not until they are old.
She asked if her grandparents would die one day. I said, yes. She asked if her Papa would die. I said, yes. Will you die? Same answer. And then came the big, existential question from a kid barely out of diapers, “Am I going to die?”
The time was right to reveal to her that, though she was born to mere mortals, she was actually an eternal fairy that would reside forever in a…
