Frith O’Steen

My son and I had our first real conversation about the concept of mortality tonight. He’s 5, I know it’s an age appropriate thing, but I still had been dreading this for a couple of years now. It came up as we were making dinner together, and it actually was very sweet and flowed as organically as I suppose it could have. But still, tough. My friend’s mom passed away yesterday after a long illness, and the topic arose when I told him conversationally that I was going to be working in the nursery this week while my friend was out of town. The last time I did this, he knew that her mom was sick, so he asked if she was sick again. I took a deep breath, and answered him that no, actually, our friend’s mom had died. He asked did that mean was she broken? Oh man. I told him what I had kinda rehearsed in my head for this conversation, and said that all living things live for a long time, and then when we get old we stop living. I told him he was really lyoung still and that he didn’t need to think about that for a long time. He registered this information and  then informed he was never going to die. (I am holding back tears as this whole chat goes down, btw). I said, well, everyone does someday, but again - he doesn’t have to think about it for a long time. I told him then that after you die, no one knows exactly where you go, and that some people call it heaven, but that I believe that we all get to be with our family after we die just like when we’re alive. I didn’t want to give too many details, and freak him out, and you gotta love the kid because his next sentence was, and I quote: “We need onions, Mommy! We almost forgot the onions!”. I love 5 year olds.

Later on this evening he asked some more basic questions from his dad and I separately (luckily Sean heard our conversation while he was ‘napping’ on the couch, and was very supportive about what I had said to him), and I think I reassured him but I know it’s gonna come up again. I can only hope that I answered him truthfully and still gave him enough reassurance so that he won’t start worrying about it too much.  I know this is one of the basics of life, and everyone has to learn about their own mortality at some point. But tonight it feels like my little boy lost a bit of his innocence, and I had to be the one to do it. That just completely sucked. I would so much rather have been having the sex talk with him!