Claude spent a few years processing that his grandfather had died just before he was born. It’s always a struggle to understand the presence of an absence.
One day in the midst of his processing, he asked me a question.
“Are you going to die some day?”
“Are we all going to die some day?”
I was undone by his perfectly logical, curious questions.
“Come here, I just want to hug you,” I said.
After the hug, Claude continued his questions.
“Am I going to die some day? When am I going to die?”
I tried not to cry.
People said to me later that these were all completely reasonable questions, that it was a normal part of child development to inquire into death, and that Claude deserved sober answers from me rather than sentimentality.
I think I eventually gave sober answers, but Claude already knew them anyway.
Writing this, I’m still trying not to cry.