Really!

This morning Riley and I were in the kitchen waiting for the coffee to be done and the first hint of light to appear in the sky. He was groggy and sitting on the island watching me start breakfast when out of the blue, as if we were continuing a conversation we'd started earlier, he said "Well, sometimes my spirit just goes away" and he gestured with his hand sweeping up toward the ceiling. Wearing my poker face I asked him if he could tell me any more about it, but had moved on and had nothing further to add. Hmmm. 

And kind-of as a tangent, I remember once hearing a wonderful program about spirituality in children and the frank, matter of fact way in which they acknowledge and accept the presence of a higher spirit. The younger the child was the more open they were to that presence and the more tangible it was to them. The man being interviewed (who, as I recall, had been something like a pediatric oncologist prior to moving into his study of spirituality in children) talked about how, at birth, the connection to the higher spirit is wide open, but as we get older and more inundated with the physical world, a veil falls over our eyes (so to speak) and the vision becomes more and more obscured. He went on to say that his young patients had taught him over the years that at the end of life that veil is lifted once again and the mystery and enormity of the spiritual world is once again clear. What a solace. 

When Riley was a newborn baby, once he had his focus, Robbie and I used to marvel at how he'd gaze past us intently and suddenly smile and wiggle with happiness as if he'd seen a friend. 

Riley has a lot of questions about death these days, having recently experienced the death of one of his great aunts, and he's asked us what it's like to die. I've told him that I don't know exactly what it's like, but that I've heard that when our body stops working there comes a sudden awareness of great love and welcoming. It's an image that seems to bring a sense of calm acceptance about something that has the potential to be enormously frightening. 

Goodness. What a way to start the day! ;-)