There is a beauty in death; there is a mystery to it. We find it in unexpected moments and ordinary places. This finch appeared on our doorstep; we found it while eating ice cream that we had purchased from a truck that we chased down in our car, following the sound of its music. We knew it might be the last ice cream of the summer, and while we enjoyed it on our front stoop, this little bird's summer had already ended.
The children were curious and we moved the bird, hypothesizing about how it got there, how it died. Two children poked cautiously with popsicle sticks, warned not to touch it with their fingers. It was full of ants and smelled bad. I was interested to discover that the older boys recognize that smell.
Lately, talk has centered often around mummies - how the people died, how the mummies are prepared, whether they are real or pretend, what happens to them after they are wrapped.
"Is Cleopatra real?" asks Reese.
"She was a real person," I answer. "She lived and died a long time ago."
"And now she's pretend?" he queries. I'm not sure how to answer that. Are we real or pretend after we die? Our bodies are still real. What do you call a memory? A legend? Is he asking about the actual Cleopatra or the cartoon version in Scooby Doo? Does passing from life into legend and then into cartoon make a person pretend?
It's interesting that he knows that death is permanent for the bird, but not that it is permanent for ancient people buried in elaborate ways.
Another day, in the car, he referred to the church near our house as a cemetery.
"It's not a cemetery, sweetie," I correct him, "It's just a church. A cemetery is where dead people are buried." And from there we launch into a discussion about what happens when people are buried, why dirt is put on top of them, why they are in a coffin. He wants to know if everybody is buried, and I debate whether to explain cremation to him. I take the risk, he's quietly fascinated. I remember Griffin being similarly matter-of-fact about death and wanting to know its mundane details at this age.
"Tell me more about what else you can do with dead bodies," he prompts me. He is always asking me to tell him more. If you demur, you get a testy "just tell me." It's as if he's assuring you that he really can take it, whatever the news is. So far he is always correct. He unearths new information like an archaeologist at a dig, persistently brushing away layers of debris, doggedly pursuing the pieces of a puzzle to assemble. I gingerly open the subject of donation, saying that some people want scientists and doctors to be able to use their bodies after they are done living, so that they can learn about bodies, or discover new things, or take the useful parts and give them to people who need them. I explain that scientists sometimes study bodies after the people are done living, so that they can figure out how to solve crimes, and that when I die, I would like scientists to be able to learn from my body. I choose each word carefully, worry that each one is a mistake, fear that I'm going to give him nightmares or some kind of complex.
Instead he tells me that he would like to donate his body to a medical school when he dies. I assure him that I do not think that will happen for a long, long time, but that I will remember that this is what he wants to happen.
Every time we have a discussion like this, find and examine an animal, exchange our strange thanatopsis, I am reminded of the Erikson quote, "healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death." He was referring to having a sense of ego integrity, being at peace with one's life and prepared to meet death, but I have to wonder if there is more to it than that. I sense in my children an understanding of death and an acceptance of it, an appropriate level of concern but without paralyzing fear or worry.
There is beauty in death; there is mystery in it. We find it in unexpected moments and ordinary places. It is woven into our lives whether or not we look for it, and it teaches us, in its casual way, things we might not learn otherwise.
