Ever had one of those conversations in which you know you’re saying the wrong thing — you feel yourself saying the absolute worst words — but you can’t stop yourself? It’s like when you’re headed for a car crash and time becomes stretchy and slow, but it’s too late. You’re already on a trajectory.
That’s what happened recently when I watched Coco with my 4-year-old son, Everest. We’ve seen the movie before, but this was the first time that he fully realized the skeletons were dead people. Of course he had questions — and that’s when a car crash spilled out of my mouth.
E: Are they really dead? Like dead dead?
ME: Oh, yes. Dead like our cat.
E: Dead like Kung Pao? … Why did they die?
ME: Well, everybody dies.
E: EVERYBODY DIES?
ME: Yes.
E: Even me?
ME: Yes, even you. But don’t worry. I’ll probably die a long time before you.
I can’t even count the number of therapy appointments Everest will eventually have based on that one conversation.
It didn’t phase him too much in the moment, but he’s 4. Sometimes it takes him days to process something, and then seemingly out of nowhere he’ll say, “Wait. So tigers DON’T lay eggs?” So I fully expect him to circle back to this at a very inappropriate time: “What do you mean I’m going to die like my cat?!?”
Most likely this will happen in a public space.