Theories of Relativity

So there we were, Monday evening, eating dinner, when Joe asked apropos of absolutely nothing: "When do people die?"  One tries to prepare for such moments, of course, but in the moment, the script you read in the parenting book, or on the handout you got at the pediatrician's office, the script that was short and  straightforward and honest, tends to be forgotten.  With any luck, you are left with remembering to be short, straightforward, and honest.

Julie tried first.  (She forgot to buy herself some time by saying something like, "That's a good question."  See the script flying out the window?  There is goes!  Whee!)  She said something like people usually die when they are really, really, really old.  If you were there, you could almost hear her and Ted, collectively, thinking, "Don't say people die when they get sick!  Or at least remember to say sometimes people die when they get sick.  Like Raleigh!  He got sick and there wasn't any medicine to make him better."  Ted got there first: "Sometimes when people get ill [Ill!  That's the ticket!] they might die if there's no medicine to make them better."

Joe was still back on when they are really, really, really old answer and had a follow-up: "Like Grandpa Charles?  When he gets lots more years old?"  Julie's heart was in her throat, but she managed to say, "Yes, when he's lots more years old.  Lots."

And that was that.  This reporter can't remember where the conversation careened after that.

These are the things that the Wee Ones say that make the Not So Wee Ones feel terribly not so wee, right?  That make the Not So Wee Ones feel their mortality that much more keenly?  But although this reporter is, relative to Joe and Clara, at least older, she does not feel old.

She feels the accumulated years: is it possible that she will be the same age this year as Grandpa Charles was when she was born?  That she will have been graduated from college almost 15 years?  From high school almost 20?  That she and Ted will have been married eight years?  And have lived in Minnesota that long?  That she has, she supposes, by now a career, not just a job?  That Joe will begin kindergarten this fall?  That Clara's hair is long enough to be put up in barrettes?

Julie read a book once that contained the line, "Life gathers."  Julie feels hers doing that, but still she doesn't feel old, and she doesn't think of Grandpa Charles as old, just older.

And now she realizes that in answering Joe's question, she answered only with her head.  She forgot to answer with her heart, too, and say that she believes, sometimes people don't ever die because they have gathered in our hearts, where they will stay always.

Maybe this is the heart's way of guarding against one of life's stiffest blows.  Nevertheless, Julie believe it is true.  It is as true as the fact that later in the week, when Julie asked Clara who was in Clara's heart, Clara answered, "Chloe, and Pink Dog, and Fluffy, and Berenice, and Daddy, and Mommy, and Joe."

Chloe took top billing, Brigade.  Always in her heart.