The following post was written by Amber McCain, who blogs at Amber Nicole Blogs and is part of POPSUGAR Select Moms.
The other day I had a talk with my 5-year-old that I definitely was not prepared to have.
No, not THAT talk, although I almost think that talk might have been easier to explain.
He asked me what happens when he dies.
He told me he didn't want to die and never come back and leave all of his friends.
At first I told him he could just stay young forever and that he didn't have to worry about it.
To which he replied, "Mom, I'll still have birthdays! I still get old." No matter how many times I insisted he could just stay 5. He knew better.
Darn that smart child of mine.
So he pressed on, and I said, "Well, baby . . . when you die, if you were good in life you go to Heaven."
He told me he hasn't always been good. He started panicking.
I reassured him that he's still a good kid/person and that you had to be REALLY bad, like a bad guy, to not go to Heaven.
He was completely clueless.
So in the best way I could, I explained God to a 5-year-old.
I told him that God made Earth and all of space and that when you die, you go to Heaven to be with God.
He said he didn't want to die and never ever see his friends or us again.
I told him we'd all go to Heaven and be waiting for him or he'd be waiting for us.
He wasn't finished with the conversation, but we'd gotten to Maddie's preschool, so it just ended.
I blame Halloween and all of the R.I.P. signs he'd seen everywhere. He asked what R.I.P. meant one day, and I told him and he was just confused too.
So again, I had to explain that when people die, you put R.I.P. up and hope that they rest in peace - poor 5-year-old full of questions stuck with a mama who is just stumped when it comes to answering half of them.
We don't attend church.
David doesn't believe.
I do, I think. I believe in something. Or at least, I want to. I'm just not sure what that something is.
This isn't meant to be a religious post, just me rambling about mom life.
But I do want to ask y'all:
How do you explain death and life to your children?
God? Heaven? Hell? What?