Funeral Plans

I had a very interesting conversation with Aaron and Adrian today. Out of the blue, Aaron proclaimed from his car seat that he would be an excavator driver when he grew up - no surprises there. It was his second proclamation that got my attention. He announced that Adrian would be a coffin maker. What?!

Aaron's rationale was that Adrian would make my coffin and he would dig the hole where my coffin would be buried. Now, don't start thinking that my kids already wish me dead, they were actually being very matter-of-fact about it. I told them that I preferred to be cremated (and kept in an urn in their home). Unfortunately, Aaron insisted that he didn't want me to be burned up. And, without me even saying it, he came to the realization that if I wasn't cremated, I'd have to decompose in the ground. So, in this horrified voice, he said "I don't want the maggots to eat you either! I want to put something on you so that you'll stay the same."

Of course, this lead to quite a drawn out back and forth conversation about how we all have to die and we all either end up decomposing or cremated. I had to resort to offering them some snacks in the car to distract then from the conversation because it was reaching the point where Aaron was starting to get worried about me dying. And when I said that if I didn't get sick or have an accident, I should have many more years left, it didn't console him for long because he then started to think of my parents and how old they already are now.

Poor little guy, he was really starting to get worked up about it. It started off as an innocent plan on how to prepare my grave but it lead him to realize a whole lot of unpleasant things about the end of life. I gave him my usual explanation of how when we die, we hopefully get to heaven and will meet the people that have died before us. Thats how I like to think about it but you can see how easily a five year old is going to shoot me down with questions on that one.

It was a somewhat depressing conversation but at the same time, it was sweet to see how much Aaron cares about me.