A Question I Wish Wasn't Rattling Her Brain

Originally published on DC Metro Moms, 3/10/10:

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That day had dragged on, and although it was early evening, much still remained on my agenda.  As I eased myself into the cushy rocking chair, I envisioned a few quiet moments in my immediate future, nothing too taxing or remarkable.

Man, I couldn't have been more mistaken.

Not thirty seconds after settling down for my intended act of respite, the bright red hair atop my almost-four-year old daughter's head came into my line of sight, and it didn't take more than a moment to detect the look of pure distress on her face.

"Mommy?  Are we going to live forever?"


Utilizing one of the oldest stalling techniques in the book, I responded with a completely lame, "What do you think- do you think people live forever?"  Forgive me my inability to think quickly on my feet, for I was instantaneously immobilized by this query.  I was also not prepared for her reaction to my response.  Apparently she had already been giving this question some thought, because she didn't answer me in words but instead in a slow moan that soon developed into a full blown episode of sobbing.  I'm not exaggerating when I apply the term despair to her emotional state at that moment.

Continuing in my parental ineptitude, I asked her why she was crying.  (Duh.)  Of course, her reply was straightforward, "But... I don't want to be dead!"  As that last word escaped her lips almost unwillingly, she climbed onto my lap and proceeded to whimper into my chest.  I cradled her like a baby, because honestly, she has only existed for three years, and the memory of her infancy is solidly fresh in my mind.  But at that moment, I felt helpless and dumb and more unprepared than ever before in my role as Mommy.

Without a religious doctrine or belief system to point to, I was hesitant to discuss any ideas of the afterlife with my preschooler, because it's clearly not the time to launch into my sometime-atheist/sometime-believer-wannabe train of thought.  But the scientific perspective seemed much too harsh to toss at this child whose brain was posing a question that her emotions were simply not prepared to contemplate.  While she has not experienced the death of any important person in her world yet, she has seen the occasional dead bird outside, and we've watched a couple of insect captivity projects go awry, so obviously the concept of being no longer alive isn't completely foreign to her.  For whatever unknown reason, she suddenly thought to apply the concept to her family and herself.

As we rocked together, her tears pooling on my t-shirt, I tried to find words that would bring comfort without making me cover up her fears with lies.  "Sweets, most people live many, many, many years in their lives, living until they are very old grown-ups.  And that's what we hope to do- live really long lives.  And all we can really do is be happy today.  We can be happy that we're here today and we have each other."
While I may not have all the answers, and I'll probably never know what pushed her thoughts in this direction, I do hope that I was successful at conveying the love I feel for this child with my words.  Are we going to live forever?  I'm logging that one as the downright hardest question my heart has ever had to hear.

This is an original DC Metro Moms post. 

Dawn blogs nonsense about her family at my thoughts exactly, and tries to sound intelligent when she reviews books at 5 Minutes for Books.