Big Questions

"Who was it, who I love, who died?" you asked me.

"It was Nana," I said. "My mama."

You considered this and then said "Oh yes." You thought another minute, and added "But Poppop isn't going to die, right?"

"Well," I said. "He is. But not for a long time. Poppop is very healthy." 

"What is Poppop going to die of?" you asked.

"I don't know," I said. "Nobody knows." 

"When is Poppop going to die?"

"I don't know. Not for a long time. You don't have to worry about it right now."

This mollified you for a bit, but not entirely. Later, upstairs, we were getting ready for nap. You were in bed and I was readying to lie down and hold you.

"Does everyone die?" you asked.

"Yes," I said. 

Then, the worst question of them all. Your face changed, and you said "Am I going to die?"

My eyelids started to burn and I said "Yes. I am too. But not for such a very long time."

You started to tear up. "I don't want to die," you said. 

My heart shattered into a million billion pieces and I said "Nobody does, sweet pea."

Then I put my arms around you and we cried softly together. "I'm sorry I had to be the one the tell you. It's a hard truth."

"It's okay, Mama," you said.

"You don't have to worry about it right now. We get to be together for a very, very, very long time." I can't bear to tell you that sometimes, it's not fair, when we die. Sometimes grownups die when their children are young. Sometimes children die too. It is not our birthright, my mother told me she realized when she had cancer, to live a long and happy life. But you are still only three. I still want to protect you from the beauty, miraculousness, and yet brutal unfairness of existence.

This morning, driving to school, you asked me, "Where did you put Nana when she died?"

"She's in a pretty garden right by where I went to church when I was growing up," I told you. "There's a fish pond and pretty flowers." I didn't tell you that I sobbed when Dad emptied the bag of ashes into the ground, and when the time came for me to leave, after all the receiving line and gentle smiles and hugs and thanks for coming were over, that I had a very hard time pulling my car away, looking over at this place where my mother both is, and is not. 

"Where do we go, when we die?" you wanted to know.

Sometimes I wonder where you were, before you were born. Were you floating around in some nether haze, waiting to be formed? It it possible I ever lived in a world without you in it? 

"No one knows," I said. 

"But that place where people go when they die, what is it called?" you clarified.

"A cemetery," I said.

"Yes," you said. You looked out the window.

"Do you have any other questions?" I asked, looking at your face in the rear view mirror. You had some chocolate on your mouth, because I gave you chocolate pretzels as a special treat for breakfast today, because you have been reluctant to go to school. I worry that you are lonely there. I'm already planning to apply to other places for the year after next, when you are almost five. 

You didn't answer.

"Would you like me to put the story back on?" I asked.

"Yes," you said. We are listening to Moby Dick. I turned the story back on, where we learn that Quequeeg is a Polynesian prince, and I think of you, my Ishmael, not yet four years old, as you stare down the barrel of the biggest questions of them all.