The unknown
The bubster asked me: "Mummy. Do we know when we are going to die?"
Wow.
I said, "No bubba. We don't know that. We don't know when we are going to die. Hopefully, we will live a long time."
Bubster: "Some people die when they are very little. When they are babies."
Me: "Yes, some do."
Bubster: "And some people live a long time."
Me: "Yep. Some do."
Bubster: "Well, I'm going to live a long time. I'm going to be big like you one day."
Me: "That is what I hope too. Maybe you will live to be 115 years old!"
Bubster: "What is 115?"
Me: "Old."
It's my most ardent wish. A long happy life for us all.
Dr. Jo recently started a post entitled Defined by Loss, with this:
A Chinese nobleman asked a philosopher to grant his family a blessing after the recent birth of his first grandson. The scholar thought for a moment and then replied, "Grandfather dies, father dies, son dies." The nobleman was horrified but the philosopher said, "What other way would you have it?"
Yes. Anything else is out of order. It is what makes a child's death so inconsolable. It is out of order. It does not complete the circle of life.
Wow.
I said, "No bubba. We don't know that. We don't know when we are going to die. Hopefully, we will live a long time."
Bubster: "Some people die when they are very little. When they are babies."
Me: "Yes, some do."
Bubster: "And some people live a long time."
Me: "Yep. Some do."
Bubster: "Well, I'm going to live a long time. I'm going to be big like you one day."
Me: "That is what I hope too. Maybe you will live to be 115 years old!"
Bubster: "What is 115?"
Me: "Old."
It's my most ardent wish. A long happy life for us all.
Dr. Jo recently started a post entitled Defined by Loss, with this:
A Chinese nobleman asked a philosopher to grant his family a blessing after the recent birth of his first grandson. The scholar thought for a moment and then replied, "Grandfather dies, father dies, son dies." The nobleman was horrified but the philosopher said, "What other way would you have it?"
Yes. Anything else is out of order. It is what makes a child's death so inconsolable. It is out of order. It does not complete the circle of life.
Comments
Kids can be incredible teachers though. i remember my 5 yo asking me how a man got hiv if it was a sexually transmitted disease...
You are an identical twin. I'm so sorry about your sister. My sisters are identical twins and one of them made the comment once that she's never known what it is to be alone because she was born with someone. I had not considered that before she shared this. It would make a loss like yours even more poignant.
WOW, what an amazing head on little Magnus' shoulders...How amazing are their questions? They are trying to sort out how things work - or don't - in their world.
When we lost the twins an ex-student of David's said her mother finally told her that she was a twin. She was so shocked because she had never known & her mother had never spoken about it. Perhaps because our pain was so public & they were talking about loss she had some amazing conversations with her mum...I like to think that little Max & Lucy have had a part to play in helping people talk more openly. (We got a card from a little girl in Year 1 saying that her Mummy had lost twins too. She knew she was very loved/precious & wanted to share that hope with us...WOW.)
((((Karin))))
What a slap in the face it was to learn that the "natural order" of things didn't always happen that way...