Poop and Death
So, today, Lucas talked rather extensively about poop and dying. I understand that poop is a naturally fascinating subject for someone who has only recently mastered the toilet. Hearing him talk about dying and what happens when people die kind of threw me a little.
“What does ‘die’ mean?”
“Well… when a person’s body is too tired to live anymore, the body goes to sleep forever.”
“Do people who die zoom away?”
“Yes, I suppose they do. When the body goes to sleep, the spirit of the person lives on. Some people think the spirit goes up into the sky. I think the spirit of the person goes out of the body and goes into all the living things in the world.”
….later in the day….in a parking lot….
“Mom, is that girl dead?”
“What girl?”
“There,” pointing.
I looked around and didn’t see any girl.
“Where? I don’t see her.”
“Right there. I see her.”
“Oh….Um, I don’t know son.”
September 30, 2005 at 12:45 am
When I was a toddler or just a little later, I pointed to a woody ridge along the highway somewhere and told my mom “that’s where the indians killed me.” Of course I don’t remember saying it, but my mom sure does.
I tend to think that barriers between life and death are much more permeable when you are a child, and that other realities can become visible. But that’s not that comforting to a mom, especially one who’s seen The Sixth Sense, so maybe he’s just trying to get a rise out of you. He is a wickedly smart kid.
September 30, 2005 at 2:06 am
That’s a little creepy and reminds me of an episode of that show Medium. I’m glad he wasn’t scared.
September 30, 2005 at 10:26 am
A spookily brilliant kid I used to live with was really obsessed with death around 3-4 years old. It’s a hard subject to wrap your head around.
September 30, 2005 at 1:04 pm
Geez, what ever happened to the way *I* was brought up. Death does not exist. Don’t ask, don’t tell, the dog went to live on a nice farm upstate. That was my take on it until I started picking up dead people for a living. “I see dead people”, well duh.
September 30, 2005 at 1:07 pm
Kids say the darndest things. I’ve heard my share. I am of the beleif that the “dreamstate” that some people talk about kids living in is probably the same dreamstate that adults try to acheive through trance, meditation, drugs, etc. Perhaps shedding it is part of the metamorphosis. When I think back to my childhood it was full of people that weren’t there: sometimes they were scary and sometimes they weren’t. As I got older I became obsessed with ghosts and grew to dismiss everything I saw as a kid as fantasy. When I started babysitting I got an earful of “the lady in the hall” or how “Grandma died so now she lives with us.” I once had a four year old tell me all about how he use to live in Egypt and what it was like. His story was full of details of his house and the people he lived with. “I’ve lived other places, too, but that’s the one I remember the most.”
September 30, 2005 at 1:13 pm
Hee, your title makes me think Woody Allen thoughts…
I SO want to talk to him about what he sees. I am always curious about it, and personally believe people are out of their bodies and mixing and mingling with us all the time…
Anyway. I’m sure you feel like it’s all in a day’s work, but I am always impressed, m’dear.
September 30, 2005 at 1:19 pm
Isn’t Poop or Death an Eddie Izzard routine?
September 30, 2005 at 1:48 pm
It’s funny. I want to ask Lucas lots of questions too, but he often resists my probing into his mind. I guess he tells me, with the words he has available to him, what he wants me to know.