“Does everyone eventually die?” My five-year-old (Lena) stared up at me with her inquisitive blue eyes as she asked me something I thought we were many years away from having to discuss. Foolish me. All these life ponderings have come much earlier than expected. Where do babies come from? What happens when you die? For those of you with older children, I applaud you. You’ve undoubtably tackled countless difficult questions and situations. For those of you yet to experience the joy of a walking, talking, miniature philosopher, I say Godspeed. It’s all coming soon, but you can handle it!

So, what did I say when asked about humanities’ mortality? Well, I couldn’t very well lie so I said, “It’s not something you need to worry about. You are young and healthy. But yes, everyone eventually dies.” She immediately bust into uncontrollable tears and began screaming, “I don’t want to die!” Ironically, I was on a conference call regarding the ongoing global pandemic, discussing mortality rates at that exact moment, so I couldn’t do much to comfort my hysterical child. I picked her up and hugged her, gave her a snack, and put the movie “Big Hero 6” on the tv for her to watch- the robot, Baymax, cracks her up. “We will talk more when mommy is done her meeting.” That bought me about 30 minutes, where I would intermittently hear her sobs, followed by giggles and singing.

When I was finally off my call, we sat down and talked. She had fast-forwarded to the end of the movie where a song called, “Immortal” began to play. “What does immortal mean, mommy?” “Well, it means you live forever.” Oh, the cruel timing! This immediately brought more tears and screaming about what felt to her like her impending death. We talked about all the people and animals she remembers who have died. We fondly remembered each one and how their love never goes away, even when they are no longer on earth. We have this book called The Invisible String and it talks about how everyone is always connected, whether they are in the same room, across the world, or in whatever version of an afterlife you believe. Her biggest fear about death? Not being able to hug people and love them anymore. We had recently watched the movie Coco and Lena was really drawn to the concept of remembering the dead on Día de los Muertos. What a healthier relationship with death when you mourn loss but focus on celebrating the life that was lived. We thought about doing something similar in our family.

Fast forward two weeks later and Lena is building a train track on the living room floor with her five-year-old cousin Julian. I am passively listening while working in the other room. “Hey, Julian, do you know everyone eventually dies?” “Yeah, everyone on earth,” Julian says casually, and they both go back to deciding if the police station and helipad should be near the mountain pass, or by the curve in the track. Watching this interaction, I realized something pretty amazing, something I’ve seen countless times before, but often forget. Kids are amazingly resilient. They process information in their own way, at their own speed, and then they can move on. There was no existential crisis talking with her cousin. Neither of them shed a tear. They both know life is not infinite, whatever that means, and they have moved on to move important things like proper train track construction methods.

Sometimes, I personally have not given my child enough credit. I think as parents it is normal to worry that we have failed to provide our offspring with the necessary abilities to actually survive and thrive in the real world. It felt like she would never stop nursing, and then one night we were both done. We were positive the pacifier would accompany her to work on her first day at NASA, but one visit from the pacifier fairy and she has never looked back. All we can do is talk to our kids, try to help them on this confusing journey of unraveling what life is all about. Give them the confidence to know they can handle whatever comes at them in life. And send them on their way. She still cries sometimes when she thinks about death, but what adult hasn’t lay awake at night terrified of no longer existing and what that means? I know she will be ok, and I also know this is not the last hard question we will have to answer. But I know we will all take it in stride, and figure it out together, no matter how upsetting or confusing it may seem.

Submitted by Kathleen Philp, Mother of one in Massachusetts.