It'll only feel like we died

Lauren has been asking about death a lot lately. Over the past few weeks, she has mentioned several times that she wished we weren't all going to die. I have, of course, assured her that I expect it to be a really long time before that happens and that it's nothing to be afraid of.

Well, on the way to church Sunday we were listening to some hymns, and I noticed that the last line to one of them was "living and dying to be Thine." As soon as that song ended, Lauren piped up again with, "I wish I wasn't going to die." I repeated my usual assurances but wasn't overly concerned since I knew that this question was clearly triggered by hearing the reference to dying in the song.

Then we had this conversation:

Lauren: Is Taco gonna die, too? (He's her Webkinz chihuahua.)
Me: No, Taco is not alive. Only things that are alive will die.
Lauren: Then I can't take him to Pennsylvania with me.
Me: Sure you can; you can take all of your animals to Pennsylvania.
Lauren: But, we're gonna die in Pennsylvania.
Me: WHAT?! No we're not, sweetie. Is that what you think?
Lauren: Yeah. I thought there was a dying place in Pennsylvania.

Of course, I assured her that we were going to live in our new house with Daddy and reminded her that she'd been to Pennsylvania before and survived.

In retrospect, I think what caused her to think this may have been her hearing me say things like, "This is the last time we will go to gymnastics." or "We only have two Sundays left here." I guess she read into them a level of finality I had not intended.

Poor kid. I feel so bad that she thought that. But, on the upside, she handled it remarkably well.