Death to a 7 year old

I find it hard to answer a lot of questions from my 7 year old. One of the oddest was around death. As we passed a cemetery the other day he asked what all the stones were for.

Obviously at 7 years old he knows that people die, so my response seemed more than adequate. "When people die, they are placed in a cemetery with a stone that marks where they are. The stone can say different things, but usually has their name, birth date, date they died, and perhaps something they did, or a favorite phrase."

I get really thought provoking questions all the time, and didn't think this one was very hard. It can be really difficult to explain something "adult" to a child using language and metaphors he will understand without a common reference to build on. Some are like trying to explain the color green to a blind person; this wasn't one of those ... So I thought.

As he goes to church with his Mom, I should have expected the follow-up. "So, when they go to heaven, their skin is put in the ground?" Interesting. "No", I said, "their bodies are put in the ground". "Oh, their bodies are in the ground and their skin goes to heaven?", he replied. So, now what? With one last gasp I tried to just say it all goes in the ground.

Thankfully, he didn't reply. Something else attracted his attention, much like the passing of a cat to a dog.