“Mommy, when am I actually going to die?”
Image: Mark Groeneveld
Malu Pesulima (29) lives with Romano and is mother of Mack (4) and baby Mosi.
“Mommy, when am I going to die?” For a moment, my throat feels constricted as Mack confronts me with his thoughts out of the blue from the backseat. It overwhelms me. “Not yet dear, not until you are a hundred.”
Dark thoughts
Mack seems pleased with the answer and continues to hum to the tune of Jokie & Jet, but a few seconds later I realize what I actually said. Because only dying when we are a hundred, of course, that is not right. Not everyone dies until they are a hundred – if only they did.
“A few seconds later, I realize what I really said”
If only no one ever ended up under a car, that there was no war anywhere in the world and no diseases existed. That every person was so healthy and happy that he whistled to the hundred. But those dark thoughts? I would prefer to spare my sensitive toddler forever.
Read also – Talking to your child about death: how do you do that? >
Sadness, warmth and love
They take me back to my own childhood, when I lost a boyfriend when I was thirteen; it is a period that is forever etched in my memory. Not only because of the sadness that I had never felt so intensely as a child, also because of the warmth and love that arose in the week of his funeral.
My mother cooked for all the visitors and together with a friend I went to our primary school to tell the news in his old class. We wrote a speech, laughed until our jaws cramped, cried until we couldn’t anymore and drew hearts on his wooden box. Of course I was sad, but since that warm blanket I no longer see death as just nasty – something I hope to pass on to Mack and Mosi as well.
“What happens when you die, do you think?” I ask Mack. He replies emphatically: “Then you can no longer move. And no more going to Efteling, no more going to school and no more shopping.”
“And where do people who are dead go?”
“To Batman. I hope so. But not if Joker is there too, because then they will fight!”
“Oh dear,” I continue. “Shall I tell you a little secret? If you want, you can also go to Batman when you’re dead. But only in a hundred years, agreed?”
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