Talking to Olivia about Death

During dinner one recent evening, Olivia told me she’d been thinking about something.

She said, “I don’t know why I thought of this but…”

She struggled to find the right words for what she wanted to say.

Finally, she continued, “If Lyssie dies before her girlfriend and I’m living with them, will I be able to stay living with N?”

Wait.

What?

It took me a minute, but I caught up to her train of thought. Then I grabbed the caboose rail and hauled myself right onto the train even though I didn’t even have a ticket.

I replied, “Of course N would let you stay with her if you were already living with her and Lyssie and Lyss died.”

Then O asked, “But what if Lyss and N die at the same time? Who would take care of me then?”

By this point, she was in tears at the thought of her sister being dead and her, Olivia, being alone without anyone to take care of her.

I hugged her, obviously and then I told her that if A and N were old enough to be dying, they’d probably have kids and O would be Auntie Livie and those kids would take care of her.

Olivia choked on a sob and said that she was just imagining being at Alyssa’s funeral.

I tried to lighten her mood and said that her nieces and nephews would probably come up and hug her and ask if she was okay and if she wanted some tea.

She gave me a teary smile.

She tried to eat a little more dinner as she dried her sniffles but then another thought occurred to her. “Can a person come home from another person’s funeral and then lay down in the person’s bed who died?”

I asked her if she wanted to know if when I die, can she come home from my funeral and lay in my bed.

She gave a great heaving sob and nodded, throwing herself into my arms.

I think this quarantine is getting to her. All this talk of death and dying and not being able to go anywhere or do the things she enjoys are taking a toll.

Later that night she asked about heaven. We talked about God and how much He loves us all.

She wondered how, when you die, you know how to get to heaven. I told her that I think that everyone we ever loved who died before us meets us and helps us find our way to heaven.

She seemed to take comfort in that.

She also took comfort in her dad shouting from his couch earlier that evening, “Livie, your mom’s grandma is 94 years old. You’re going to my age before your mom croaks.”

He’s always a lot of help.