Maly ran outside to the backyard yesterday afternoon. I went outside to see what she was doing. I caught her with a hand trowel digging in the dirt where we buried our dead fish last Oct.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Trying to dig up Willie. I want to see him.”
“Maly, don’t dig Willie up. He’s not alive anymore.”
“And he has skeleton bones now?”
“Yes. That’s correct. He’s a skeleton now.”
“Why is he a skeleton?” Of course I did what every loving intelligent parent would do. I sat Maly down, handed her my computer and told her to google the word decomposition. ;-)
“Mommy, do we die too?”
“Yes, Sweetie.”
“Where do we go after we die?” Gulp…and there’s one of the questions you know your child will one day ask, but for some reason that day just seems to come so soon. I sat her down next to me on the top step of the deck. I told her about heaven (which she’s already heard us talk about) and getting to be with God. I told her that being in heaven would mean being happy all of the time. I also told her she’d get to be with Mary and Jesus. She seemed satiated by my explanation. We sat on the deck for a while and watched the wind blowing through the trees.
Lat night while I was preparing dinner, Maly turned to Josh and said, “Daddy, when we die we go to heaven and we get to be with Mary.”
Then she turned to me and said, “Mommy, do we see in heaven?”
“Yes, Maly. I think we do see in heaven.”
Long pause
“Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“Let’s have a conversation here.”
Umm…I thought that’s what we were doing. Kids say the darndest things.
Touching. It reminded me when I told Josh at about age four about all of us dying. He didn’t take it so well so started walking our sidewalk back and forth for the longest crying and I guess that is where he came to grips with the knowledge he would also die one day. The subject never came up again. I do remember feeling so bad that I was the one that enlightened him.