Discussing Death

We have been talking to Lizzie about death on a fairly regular basis these last couple years. It all started, when she realized that Nana and Papa were my parents she wanted to know where Drew's parents were. They are both deceased so we discussed heaven and illnesses that doctors cannot cure. It seems like once these questions died down Jacob died and we had to address that (and still are).

Then Liz started watching "Bindi the Jungle Girl" so we had to explain how the Crocodile Hunter died and is still dead even though we see him on TV sometimes, but that Bindi and most of the other people on TV are still alive. She and I are currently watching "So You Think You Can Dance" and she just asked if the dancers were "alive or dead?" Alive. "Alive like us?" Yup.

Lately Lizzie has been asking about animal deaths more. Earlier in the summer we saw some bullets in a display case and she asked what they were for.

I said, "You put them in a gun and shoot things with them."

"What things?"

"Animals and people."

She was REALLY upset about animals getting shot (but didn't say anything about the people). I explained that we need to kill animals to eat them which seemed to upset her even more. She made me promise that I would not kill any animals. Of course, Liz had no problem eating bacon and chicken nuggets later on so she didn't quite make the connection.

Then, a day or two ago she asked me, "Mommy am I hideous?"

"What does hideous mean?"

"It means really, really gross."

I told her she was definitely not hideous so she wanted to know what was. I suggested witches, but she was confused and I did not want to explain that hideous can also mean ugly so I offered vomit as an example. She suggested diarrhea and it was my turn again. All I could think of was rotting bodies which led to another complicated conversation about decomposition, animals that eat carrion, "the circle of life," and so on. She seems to understand about vultures and such, but Liz keeps asking me which animals bury the other ones.