Son #1 came home from school yesterday in a rather brooding mood. I could tell something was up but with the pitch of his voice I decided to tread lightly. He had a wrapped "present". I asked who this was for, after much protest & whinning I won't subject you to, he allowed me to put it up on top of the tv cabinet so the brothers couldn't get it. Then I sat down to try & figure out what he was thinking about to make him so quiet & frustrated. He sat at the computer not playing it, but staring off at the tv. But I could tell by his fixed stare, he wasn't really paying it any attention. I sat down across from him.
me: "What are you thinking about babe?"
son#1: "Well, I don't want to grow up and be old."
me: "Okay"
son#1: "When you're 80 years old you die."
me: "Some people live to be 90 & 100 years old too."
son#1: "They do?"
me: "Yep."
son#1: "Well, I'm NOT going to heaven."
me: "Okay, but in heaven you don't have to sleep or eat, you just play & you're with God."
son#1: "Well, I'm not going because Papa never came back from there."
me-quietly: "That's right, you don't come back."
son#1: "Well, I'm not going then. I'm going to stay with the Swaims forever." (pause) What happens when you die?"
me: "You mean to your body? After you die, we have a funeral for your body. But you have a spirit inside you that tells you right & wrong, and when you die that spirit goes to heaven to live with God."
son#1: "Well, I'm NOT going. (pause) When is he going to ask me if I want to go so I can tell him no?"
me (chuckle): "Well, he doesn't ask you like that. He asks you to be baptized, which is where you hold your nose & go under the water & come right back up. And he asks you to believe that Jesus was God's son.
See, God had a son, like you're my son. And God's son's name was Jesus. And Jesus died like Papa died. After he died, God took Jesus to live with him in heaven. One day Jesus will come back, then all the dead people will live again and he'll take us all to go be in heaven with God. So you'll see Papa then."
son#1: (processing) "Well, I think Papa misses being here and playing his Hoyle games."(computer games)
me: "I bet he does too baby. I bet he misses you like you miss him. (pause) You know how Matt is your daddy and I'm your mommy? Well, Papa was MY daddy. And I miss him very much too. So it's okay for you to miss him and be sad about that because I get sad too."
son#1: "Yeah. (pause for processing & recognition starts to dawn on him) So Nana is your mommy?"
me: "Yep."
son#1: "She not dead."
me: "Nope, she's not."
son#1 smiles "Yeah. (pause) Well I still think heaven is evil."
me (sigh): "No honey, that's hell. We'll talk about that a different day."
**I had no idea how many times we say "well"--so I apologize, but it is how son#1 starts most sentences.
3 comments:
Hahahahahhahahahaha. Awesome. That made my day. GREAT job talking to him about it. That's one for the books. I laughed hardest when you reached that moment of "OK, we'll cover the rest later. I'm in shock right now and can't handle the next leg of this converstation right now".
Too funny. You've got your hands full with that one. Always thinking.
Great mommy moment! It's funny how those conversations go all over the board sometimes; kids' brains are always moving at the speed of light, it seems. You did an awesome job explaining! :)
Interesting how we think of heaven as a wonderful place and he conceives of it as a place you don't come back from... Wow. What a discussion! You handled it well. And I agree with Paul - I like how you are all - "um, hell is for a different day!"
Post a Comment