Death has been a serious concern on Noel's mind lately. I'm not too sure why. He keeps asking, "if mummy no more Noel how?" or... "if Noel no more mummy how?" or... "if Apu no more how?"... Last night, his questions even drove him to tears as he asked me to pray for our family so that no one will die soon (how can one guarantee this??)
I had to crack my head, trying to explain death to him. I told him we have 2 parts - our body and our soul (try explaining that to a 7 yr old!). I told him, once we die, our soul will fly up to heaven, and our body is just empty. He said, it will be very scary in the ground alone... and he's scared of worms. Yikes! So I told him, we won't even know as our real part (the soul) is already in heaven. So it's ok...
He was still trying to figure it out... then i tried to use the analogy of making jelly (since he helped me lots with jelly making etc). Our body is like the mould, the tray... our spirit is like the jelly. When we die is when the jelly is taken out from the mould, and the empty mould is like our body...
SILENCE....
SILENCE....
SILENCE....
So long we never eat jelly hor mummy?
My innocent boy :)
So, if any of you have tips on how to explain death to a child (so that he's not scared of worm!), pray do share!!
it's hard...until now this is a topic i choose to ignore...!i do get scared somethimes...
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