So we’re in the car yesterday, jamming out to the Glee soundtrack. Volume 1 if you must know. And we hear a little 5 year old voice coming from the back.
“Um. Dad. (He wasn’t mistaking me for Dad, he really was in the car.) Is the Earth going to blow up into space? L says it’s going to blow up into space.”
“In 50 billion years!” she chimed in, rolling her eyes. I couldn’t actually see the eye roll, but I could hear it.
“I don’t want the Earth to die.” he said, sadly.
My husband assured him it wouldn’t and we turned the music back on.
Then we hear sobbing. “I don’t want to die.”
“I don’t want to die either,” my husband said. “Everything dies sometime.”
“It’s part of the Life Cycle!” the girl chimes in. (Thanks for that, darling.)
“Well, if the Earth blows up does God die?”
“Um. No. God is eternal.”
“What is eternal?”
“A little help here?” my husband whispers to me. Yeah. I got nothing. And I’m trying to find the highway exit off of Santa Fe. Not as easy as it sounds. “Eternal means forever.”
“Ok. If I die do I come back as a baby?”
“Um. I don’t know.”
At this point we turned the Glee Soundtrack back on.
So let’s see, we’ve covered the end of the world, the concepts of death, God, and reincarnation all in the span of a half an hour. What kind of questions is he going to ask us when he’s in kindergarten?
Later that evening, right before bed, he snuggled up to me and said the words that most cancer survivor mamas dread. “I don’t want you to die, Mama.” I tried not to read to much into it in hopes it was more about the earth exploding than my cancer. I truly dread the day my children realize what cancer is.
“I’m not going to die any time soon, love. And you’re not either.”
“Ok.”
And I let him fall asleep in the chair with me. Probably as much for me as for him.
November 9, 2010
throwslikeagirl74
5 responses to “Heavy Questions”
Laurie
November 9th, 2010 at 06:09
I was laughing and then I was crying. Why do all the hard questions come up when you are trying to do something else? The car especially.
And I have done the fall asleep in the chair/on the couch/in bed with me thing far too often just because I want to hold my wee one (now 7) close and listened to our mingled breathing. xo
Mandycharlie
November 9th, 2010 at 09:04
sipping hot chocolate and crying at the same time is not good. I had to stop sipping the hot chocolate. It gets worse, my 18 year old who has studied biology at “A” level told me with utmost certainty that I’d only got a few years to live and that I wouldn’t make it into my old age. Thanks for that love…
I think you both handled it wonderfully, he got all of his questions answered and was peaceful enough with the answers to doze off, that is a good result.
radioactive tori
November 9th, 2010 at 09:27
I have had these exact conversations with my kids. I guess at least we can take comfort in the fact that we have smart curious kids who want to learn and know everything. The talking about dying part always makes me cry and hold my “babies” tighter.
lydee
November 10th, 2010 at 16:37
awww, so sweet, so precious, and what a smart little boy to be asking such deep questions!
whymommy
December 13th, 2010 at 09:21
Oh, my heart! These children, they really get us with their questions, don’t they?
Thinking of you often, and hoping that you are well and having a wonderful time with those little ones!