My 9 years old son and his 8 years old friend were talking at the luch table about movies today when this little boy asked half jockingly "you know what is the most scarriest thing ever?" Immediatelly he come out with his own answer : "to die".

As a child care professional I could not brush this one off, so I asked him why wouldhe say that, how does he know.

"I just know" he said. "Death is the most scarriest thing"

"But why would you even think about death" I asked him

I mean, he is so young, children at his age should not even think about things like that.

"People have died in my family" he said.

"So that scares you? What do you think it means to die?"

"It's like going to sleep for a very long time. You can't touch things anymore"

 

I remember that the first time I ever realized the meaning of death was a little after my mother died. Since than I am terrified of death, but before that I never even thought about the subject. I was only 17 when she died, so I guess I was just too young to start thinking about death. But now I was looking at this little boy, who had to face death way earlier than I did, and now here he is, his little brain is already keeping him in fear of what he knows will come. What a weight for a little boy!

 

Than I looked at my own son. He knows my mom died early. Than last year he saw me breaking down when we heard of my brother's death. The summer before that his step mother's father has passed away, and now, this summer that same step mother had her nephew killed in a car excident. My son was exposed to death so many times he must have had these frightening thought by now. I wish I could hug him and make these disturbing thought go away, and let him be a healty happy little boy.

 

The best I could do for the both of them was start talking about the religious outlook on the subject. The only thing that comforts me when I face my own fear of death. So I told them that by our religion the body we now feel and experience is just a material thing and death is just as much as a part of a process as learning to walk or talk. It is not the end, but a new begining. Once our soul can either be raised to a higher state, something we might call Heaven, or we are to be rebourn in a new body, because there is no such a thing as Hell. This subject isn't new to my son, who now could become the "smart one" and add what he already heard from me before: " you know, living on this Earth with all the sickness and war, and bad people is what really Hell means. It is better to get to go up, than it is to having have to come back here".

 

Than the little boy said he rather come back here, because he does not want to see God. THat is scarry. I know it is till his fear of death, the fear of the unknown, so my reply was that he should not be scared of God. he sould love him as God loves him.

"Well, I want to go to Heaven, because it is up there, and it must be fun to be up there" he said. "I hope Foofoo (my dog) and D* (my son) will be up there too, so we could all play"

 

I'm not sure of the boy is Jewish at all, or does he get a religious education from his parents being Ethiopian. I am not sure if I had the right to tell him my religious point of view and let him assume that it is the ultimate truth. I don't know how his mom going to feel about that one. But I think that if I could ease his fear as I ease my own by having faith, than I must have done something good.