He turns from the table where he's been building Lego with deep concentration.
Very casually, he asks "Dada. Is today the last day before I'm going to die?"
There are questions you expect to hear. I hear "Why?" hundreds upon hundreds of times a day.
That one I didn't expect.
"Are you going to die Dada? Are we going to die?"
A slot machine reel with a million different answers suddenly starts spinning in my head.
It lands on "I hope not."
In keeping with never lying to him, it is an honest statement.
I mean, I know that one day we will. I know that we're unlikely to end up finding the secret to eternal life, the holy grail will still elude us. With some of the people in the world right now, I'm not sure that would be a good thing if we did find it.
Do I need to explain that just because I know it?
I'll settle on 'No'.
Very honestly, I never want to leave them, even though I know it's an inescapable fact.
So we'll stay with "I hope not." for now.
One day, I'll need to give him a real answer. One day we'll lose somebody and he'll need to know why.
Today is not that day.
Let the little man keep his innocence for now. Answer the question direct and hope he moves on. Deeper answers are for another day.
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