Mortality

The other night Ben and I went to the grocery store before dinner. On the way home he suddenly blurted out, “I don’t know why I’m thinking this, but some day when Papa dies I get to have his ring.”

“Oh?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Ben confirmed. “He said I could.”

“Wow. So how does that make you feel?”

“A little bit happy and a little bit sad.”

“Ah, sad because that would mean Papa isn’t alive anymore and happy because you’d have something to remember him by?”

“Yeah.”

Ben thought about it for a few minutes, then conversationally added, “Who do you think will die first, grandma or papa?”

“Tough call. You never know how long anyone is going to live.”

“Is papa still sick?”

“No. Papa’s much better now. He has one more surgery and then that’s it. Home-free.”

“That’s good. I don’t want him to die.”

“Me neither. It would make me very sad, but everybody dies eventually. If they didn’t there wouldn’t be any room on the earth for new babies.”

“Well I don’t want papa to ever die so no new babies allowed.”

Apparently the world is on notice: No new babies.