A Five Year Old Boy

When he was a boy of five years old, his paternal grandfather passed away. It was a first awareness of death, and therefore a template of sorts. He was puzzled: grandpa was just here yesterday, wasn’t he? And now he has disappeared. Where did he go? As reality settled in, the boy couldn’t sleep. He lay awake, crying and crying. Does everyone have to die? How about me? How about my Mom and Dad? Where do people go when they die? His mother heard his cries, embraced him, soothed him. She told him that we all have a soul there inside of us. It is who we really are. And that our soul never dies. The boy didn’t quite understand, and yet his mother’s words comforted him. She held him close as her boy, calmer now, drifted off to sleep…. My mother’s words have stayed with me till this day.