On the way to dinner

“What did you do in school today?”

“We had a sub.”

“Was Mrs. E sick?”

“No, someone in her family passed away.”

“Do you know what means?”

“No.”

This was a conversation that took place on the way to a splurge dinner out after The Boy’s winter program at school. It was a nearly tortuous event that took entirely too long given the age range and time of evening, but we showered The Boy with praise because I could literally hear him singing in the very back of the gym.

He chose to ride with me on the way to dinner and this was the beginning of our conversation about what it means to die. And as I was coming to fully understand the gravity of the can of worms my innocent questioning had just opened, I realized one of the biggest reasons I’ve been avoiding, this conversation with The Boy. I just wasn’t sure how to answer his questions. I’m not a religious person. I haven’t ever been. I just cannot bring myself to buy wholesale into any one dogma or another, so that leaves me without a religious home if you will. I consider myself a very spiritual person, especially after this past year, but not religious. So I had to kind of make the whole thing up as I went along.

“What happens when you die?”

“Well, when a person dies it means that your body stops working. But the part of you that makes you, you, your laugh, your ability to love, all the things you’re good at and all the good you’ve done goes back to the universe. To the stars and sky; it goes back to where it came from when you were born. It goes back to the beginning.”

We talked quite a bit about how your body can stop working and what parts of you go back to the stars.

“Will my toys go to the stars with me?”

“No, baby. Those stay here with your body. But remember how you gave your sister that pink bear you won tonight because you saw she was sad and wanted her to feel better? That will go with you.”