I was all set to write about lint rollers--seriously--when I put Lily to bed some odd hours ago, and suddenly I realized she was sobbing. "For the last few nights I have been thinking about when you have to die," she said. "You said that everybody dies. Is that really true? It makes me too sad to think about it." I lay down beside her, my thoughts of take-out dissipating.
"Yes, it's true," I said. "People and animals and plants and all living things will die."
"But where do they go? What happens to them?" she asked. I know people handle this in all kinds of ways. Maybe there are reasons for cushioning the blow. I answered honestly.
"Nothing happens," I said. For people and animals, the bodies are buried in the ground or turned into ashes, like Rory's body. But the people and animals we love stay with us because we think about them and love them still." She had stopped sobbing; her eyes were enormous in the dark. Annika was gurgling in her crib, standing and watching us, but we both ignored her.
"Why can't things that are alive live forever?" she pressed. "Why?"
"If we lived forever our days would not seem special," I said, feeling a little lame. I have read Tuck Everlasting 100 times now, and I never quite buy it. I didn't at her age, and I still don't now. I always explain to students why Winnie made the right choice, but I always feel like a bit of a phony when I do it. Knowing what I do now, even, I'd drink the water and deal with the consequences come eternity.
"I hope you live for all the time I live," she said. "I hope you live for a thousand years." I should have said no, that I wanted to live a long, long time, to see my great-children, like Mormor, but that it wouldn't, couldn't, be for a thousand years. But instead I whispered, "Me too." Just then, Scout--all 80 overweight pounds of him--leaped up on the bed on top of us and settled in with his paws around Lily in a hug. She began stroking his nose. Then, the sobbing again, louder than before.
"I hope Sadie and Scout die at the same time," she said. "Because they would miss each other too much if one died first." By this point I was practically sobbing myself, but the mood lifted, on my end anyway, when through the tears and whimpering she managed one last thought: "And I am very worried about Christmas because I think it's just terrible that Sands doesn't let Scout up on the couch when couches are his favorite thing in the world."
At this, I was ready for my Thai food. One needs a full stomach to explain the mysteries of the universe to a four-year-old.
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3 comments:
My mom died when my daughter was just a year an a half, so she has no memories of her “Granna” although when she was a toddler, perhaps she had the knowledge that Granna hadn’t been gone for too long.
One day, at just about Lily’s age, we had a conversation that went something like this:
“Your mother is dead, right.”
“Yes Megs, you know that’s right.”
“Where did she go?”
“Well, her body is in the ground at the cemetery we visit sometimes when we go to Uncle Phil’s house but her soul is with the angels in Heaven.”
“Do you miss her?”
“Yes Megs, I do miss her.”
“Let’s go see her. Can we take a train?
I too, could have used a full stomach while trying to explain the lack of scheduled service to her grandmother.
These are great, keep going... CS
I guess we need to get Sands to lighten up on the couch rules.
Explaining to young children about death is hard but sometimes in the world of a young child it is harder to explain Santa Claus. I find my first grade students are more upset over the debate about Santa Claus being real or not real then they are when a grandparent might pass away. The mystery of a child's mind.
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