The other day I took Emma and Colin to visit my grandmother who is currently in her mid-80s. On the ride back, Emma had lots of questions about how and why people die. Specifically, she’s noticed that she has an abundance of grandmothers and great-grandmothers but just a single living grandfather and no great-grandfathers.
She knows that smoking is very unhealthy and was under the impression that people only died when they smoked (she informed me that one of her classmates was going to die because he had smoked a cigarette). So I explained to her that while not smoking, eating healthy, exercise, etc. could certainly make you live longer, that so far nobody knows how to keep people alive forever. Eventually our bodies wear down and we die.
To which she replied — in exactly the same tone of voice I might use when reminding her to stop leaving her toys on the living room floor,
Dad, this dying business has got to stop!
Indeed.