Dealing with death
Jul. 14th, 2010 10:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ailbheLinnea couldn't sleep the other night. In the end, she went to sleep a little after midnight - after over 90 minutes' of quietly discussing death, life, mortality, remembering people, having an effect on the world, and how sad it all is for her.
"I wish grownups wouldn't tell children scary things," she started. Like what? "Daddy said people don't go on forever."
Ah, yes. "Yes, you and I spend a lot of time talking about that, don't we?"
"Yes, but it's not nice, is it?"
"No, it's not nice and it's not easy. But what Daddy meant was that people don't live forever."
And so we went on again, trying to find meaning in what is actually absolutely no fun at all to think about seriously, really. She rejects Heaven entirely - what's the point? who would want to be in Somewhere Else Much Nicer Really when they could be here? Or who would want to be here when they could be in Heaven? It's too simple for her and she doesn't like it.
Today my mother was reading Snow White to the children and it started with Snow White's mother dying in childbirth. My mother glossed over that, and over a few other bits, but Linnea walked away halfway through anyway.
And later drew her best friend a picture featuring tigers; the baby tiger was looking at a slain zebra and the mother tiger was gazing at a huge pile of human heads, each with crossed-out eyes and sad mouths. There was also a slain giraffe, off behind them both. The tigers were very happy and very fierce.
Well.
"I wish grownups wouldn't tell children scary things," she started. Like what? "Daddy said people don't go on forever."
Ah, yes. "Yes, you and I spend a lot of time talking about that, don't we?"
"Yes, but it's not nice, is it?"
"No, it's not nice and it's not easy. But what Daddy meant was that people don't live forever."
And so we went on again, trying to find meaning in what is actually absolutely no fun at all to think about seriously, really. She rejects Heaven entirely - what's the point? who would want to be in Somewhere Else Much Nicer Really when they could be here? Or who would want to be here when they could be in Heaven? It's too simple for her and she doesn't like it.
Today my mother was reading Snow White to the children and it started with Snow White's mother dying in childbirth. My mother glossed over that, and over a few other bits, but Linnea walked away halfway through anyway.
And later drew her best friend a picture featuring tigers; the baby tiger was looking at a slain zebra and the mother tiger was gazing at a huge pile of human heads, each with crossed-out eyes and sad mouths. There was also a slain giraffe, off behind them both. The tigers were very happy and very fierce.
Well.