It’s a quiet Sunday afternoon in early August. My two older children, Hannah and Caleb, are at sleep away camp. My husband is in his study, getting ready to leave on a business trip. I’ve just finished making a jigsaw puzzle with my youngest, Rutie, who’s six. It’s a hot, humid day and she looks tired and sweaty.
This summer, Rutie’s been learning how to take a shower. But I suggest to her that this afternoon she take a nice long bath. I can make the water cool and she can stay in as long as she wants, playing with her bath toys. That way she can have some fun and I can reorganize the bathroom closet. It’s been in a muddle ever since Hannah and Caleb went through it, hunting for sunscreen and insect repellent and spare towels to take to camp.
Rutie and I settle down to our respective activities in the bathroom and pass a pleasant hour or so. Then she lets me know that she’s ready to get out of the tub. I close the door to my now-orderly closet, put the toilet lid down, and take a seat so I can help Rutie get herself dry. This is my least favorite part of the bathing routine, since she’s usually loud and wiggly. But today she’s quiet and still and seemingly preoccupied. Once wrapped in the towel, she says to me in a trembly voice:
“Mama, I wish I didn’t have to grow up.”
It occurs to me that Rutie’s been saying things like this to me fairly often lately — that she wants to stay a kid forever, that she never wants to be a grownup. I suddenly understand that Something’s Up and I need to pay attention. So I ask her:
“Why don’t you want to grow up?”
“Because then I’ll have to die!” She bursts into tears and buries her face in my chest.
As I put my arms around her, I try to stay calm. What should I say? I’ve never been good at lying to my kids, never been able to tell them that life is anything other than what it is. So I don’t deny the truth:
“I know, Sweetie. The hardest thing about being alive is knowing that you won’t be alive forever.”
The harshness of that seems so painful to me, at forty-nine, that I can’t even imagine what it must seem like to a six year old, someone who hasn’t had anything happen to her yet that might make her feel like death isn’t all bad. So I try to soften it a bit:
“You’re a strong, healthy girl. You eat good food and you get lots of exercise and you have all your checkups with the doctor. If you keep taking good care of yourself, I bet you’ll have a nice, long life.”
Thoughts of car accidents and cancer try to push their way into my mind, but I push them back out and try again:
“And there’s lots of things that are good about being a grownup, like having children and doing work that you like and going places and learning things.”
Rutie’s not convinced:
“Why can’t we live forever?”
“Well, because if no one ever died, and we kept on having babies, pretty soon we’d run out of space. Then what would we do?”
“Some of us could go live on another planet.”
Now I’m the one who’s not convinced. How can I explain to her that the thought of living forever horrifies me? How can I make her understand that the cycle of human life, being born and growing and giving birth and dying, is comforting to me, makes sense in a way that few things in this life do, while living forever makes no sense at all?
“Well, that’s an interesting idea. And maybe someday that will happen. But in the meantime, we need to get you dry and go have some dinner.” I tickle her and she races out of the bathroom. For once, she seems grateful to have me change the subject.
After eating dinner and saying goodbye to Daddy, we start work on another puzzle. Clearly, Rutie’s mind starts working on The Big Puzzle, too:
“I think God made a mistake,” she announces. “I don’t think it’s fair to spend all this time growing up and learning all this stuff and then just die.”
I myself don’t believe in God, but I’m not about to challenge the faith of a six year old. And while my lack of belief hasn’t kept me from being an involved and even somewhat observant Jew, it has certainly kept me from believing that I’m going anywhere except six feet under when I die. But why should Rutie be limited by me? So I try to broaden her horizons:
“You know, Rutie, there are many people in the world who think that after you die, you get born again as someone else, or as an animal. Maybe when you die, you’ll come back as a fish.”
Fish are Rutie’s favorite animals, so this idea captures her imagination. We spend the rest of the evening enjoying ourselves as we discuss the pros and cons of being reborn as one animal or another.
But at bedtime, her questions return:
“Mama, will you die before me?”
“Probably. I’m a lot older than you.”
“But I don’t want you to die!”
Her sadness comes back in a rush and she cries again. I feel myself tearing up as my own sadness, which I’ve battled for hours now, begins to overcome me:
“Oh Rutie, I don’t want to die either. But we have no choice. That’s why we have to love each other and be good to each other and make friends with people and learn how to do things and work hard and try to make the world better for each other. Life is an adventure. Every day, we never know what’s going to happen. That’s why we have to live our life as well as we can, and be happy as much as we can, because it doesn’t last forever.”
We hold each other for a while and then, as quickly as it began, it’s over. She asks me to read to her. She snuggles with her blankie, listens to my voice, pushes her sadness away.
It’s all any of us can do.