A Conversation about Death

Conversation of the day...

The children were chatting at lunch about this and that before their dialog turned toward the recent hurricanes in North Carolina and Florida.  They told me, very earnestly, that hurricanes were really dangerous.  "I saw it on the news", one child piped in,  "I heard my mom and dad talking about it," chimed another  A third responded, "Yeah, lots of people could "die" in a hurricane."  I asked them how it feels to know all of that.  They quietly agreed it felt scary, "Cuz you could die."  I then asked them what does "die" mean?  A big discussion ensued with lots of ideas about how you could "die".  For instance, you could die from choking, walking into a busy street, getting really sick or just getting really old.  I said, "Yeah, I get that.  I've heard that too, but what does "die" mean?" And while they could point to how dying could happen, no one knew what dying meant.  They looked at me and I said, "Yeah, I don't really know what "die" means either." They nodded, unperturbed.  Of course I can explain what happens to the body (which I didn't) but what does "dying" really mean?  I genuinely don't know.  I'd warrant no one really knows for sure.  I quietly considered this while finishing my salad.  Mid chew, one XP girl looked me sagely in the eye and said, "Words are like that Angelina.  Sometimes they make you think you know something that you don't really know."

They all nodded in agreement and resumed their playful chatter about unicorns, while I was left once again astonished by the wisdom of children.