December 22 2023

Laying in bed next to me, head on my chest, my 5 year old asked me, “Dad, when am I going to die?”

“Oh my boy, my boy, my boy. You and your brother will live forever, through time and past time, under and around it. You will slay countless dragons and hike though thousands of forests. You’ll meet dwarfs and witches and giants and magicians. You, my big man, are at the beginning of forever.”

He asked me a grandiose question and I reply with the same energy. It’s not that he isn’t ready for conversations about mortality — readiness isn’t the point — what I think he’s asking in part is “Am I safe?”

He both is and is not safe, so I convey that concept through story. But if I say “You are and you are not safe,” then I’ve done the same thing as if I said, “Yes, one day you will die.”

Is it true that he’ll die? I think so, yes. Is it true for him? It’s not. For instance, even though he helped shovel soil onto our dog’s body in our backyard after Jack died, both boys often say they saw Jack running beside the car, or that Jack is now in the body of another animal.

Both boys have a sense of eternity, renewal, foreverness. To them, everything is enormous. Adults are giants. The world is endless. The universe is growing.

They are teaching me to live in that space far more than I am teaching them.