Where the spirits go. It's not where you think.
For a while now, Bobbin's been asking questions about what happens when people die, where do they go when they die, why don't they just disappear when they die (which to me, actually, seems like quite an interesting question from a 4-year-old), what is the difference between dying and being unconscious (yes, she really did ask this one too), what happens to a person's body when they die, etc.
I don't really subscribe to any religious beliefs. And so I can't answer these questions with any level of certainty or conviction, and I don't believe anyone else can either, regardless of their religious beliefs and the depth of their faith on those beliefs. Just as much, I can't say with any more certainty or conviction that the answer is "nothing". That when you die, that's it, there is nothingness. You're done. Because I don't know. And even if that was what I believed, I don't think I'd want it to be my answer to her question at this age. So my answers have really been kinda more walking the fence line. I tell her that no one really knows what happen, but that there are lots of different guesses that people have about what happens, and that the guess that I like best is that when the body dies, the spirit either goes to a beautiful place that some people call heaven to watch over and protect their loved ones that are still alive, and/or that the spirit eventually gets to come back into the world and start a whole new life again when a new baby is born. I haven't told her that one guess is that nothing happens, because that's just not an image I want to burden her with.
Anyway - so there's been lots of discussion of spirits and heaven, and what do you think heaven is, and I've been mostly philosophical about it all, and really have been primarily listening to Bobbin's concrete ideas about these questions. Like she decided that Heaven is a place where it is beautiful and green and you get to play every day outside in the sunshine. I'm down for that.
So today in the car as we were driving, Bobbin popped her most frequently asked question, "Mommy, where do you think the spirit goes when someone dies" and I gave my usual philosophical response about how the spirit might go to a place that some people call heaven, or might get born again to live a whole new life as someone else, at which point she interrupted with a hand wave, and the response"Well, *I* like to think that it goes to Africa. And Florida". Very matter-of-factly.
Ok, sure. Why the hell not? :-)
A few days ago, Bobbin asked me the question "What happens to your body when you die?"
I'm not really ready to expose her images of being burned to cinders and swept into an urn, or being stuffed in a box and being lowered into the ground to be covered with dirt and left to rot. So I started off with "well, it depends on what the person believed when he or she was alive" and at that point Bobbin jumped in and said "I know! Your body goes into a special room that is very beautiful, and your family wraps your body up in cloth and covers your whole body including your face, and puts it in a beautiful box and then stands in a circle around you and holds hands and sings"
Uh... ok.
I was able to, later on, discern that they had been studying pyramids, the ancient
Egyptians, and mummies in school and that she used that as the basis for her own theory of what happens. Thankfully, after talking with the teacher, I did learn they left out the part about how they extract the organs and stick them in jars, and fill the bodies up with gunk.
It works for me though. Although it does conjur images for me of the Who's down in Whoville, encircling the Christmas tree, holding hands, and swaying side to side while singing.
Silly. But then, how else am I supposed to think of my own death? :-)
Now I'm just waiting for her to ask me when we're going to start constructing her Pyramid. Even with modern engineering and freight transport technology these things do take a while. And I guess I know how we'll be using our 401K.
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