Last night, Rushil had a hard time sleeping, 4 days of being off his sleep schedule didn't help. At one point, he got up and asked me:
R: Mommy, when I get old and then you get older and die, how will I bury you? How do I know where to bury you?
Me: Rushil, you don't need to worry about this, we won't die for a long time.
R: I really want to know what to do.
Me: I don't really want to be buried, I want to be cremated.
R: What does cremated mean and how do I take care of that?
Me: Well, we take the body to the crematorium and it will be burnt and they will then give you the ashes and you can drop them into the sea
R: (in horror) : That sounds awful, I couldn't do that to you. What if the sharks ate your ashes?
Me: Well, the ashes will sort of melt and sink to the bottom of the sea and mix into the sand. And anyway, I'm already dead so I don't think the sharks can hurt me anymore. Also it's better for nature this way so we don't use up too much land like we would for a burial.
R: I really don't think I can do that to you. How will I know where the crematorium is?
Me: Each city has quite a few crematoriums, I don't think it will be difficult to find one but I can let you know which one I want to go to.
R: Ok. I will be very sad when you die
Me: R, you won't have to worry about this for a very long time.
Seriously, can you believe I'm having this conversation with him? Maybe I dragged it on but he was sincerely worried about what to do when we died.
1 comment:
I can totally relate to this. We have had a variety of conversations around death and dying because of my dad having passed away and Madhav's dad's cancer. Nina tends to be lot more emotional - does it hurt when you die kind of questions. Anika is more curious about the mechanics of afterlife and when you die - my mom had said that you become a star and you can be seen by everyone and her questions are more along the lines of how do you get to the star in the first place and do you wear something to protect you from all that heat etc and do ants become stars when they die and what about pets etc..
It usually surfaces around bed time and we never really get around to having a deep meaningful conversation..
Rushil's questions are sooo cute though they are morbid..
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