Looking for a little hope with Earth Day

A while back, Didi asked me how old I was. I told him.

“Forty?” he replied. “Is that the end of counting?”

Laughing, I scooped him into my arms. No, I said, and tried to explain infinity to him. “Numbers don’t end.”

Despite his tender years, he began looking ahead. “When I’m 6, I’ll be in first grade. When I’m 7, I’ll be in second grade,” he chanted, all the way through high school and college. “And then I’ll be an adult.”

Later, at bedtime, we talked again about the outer limits of age.

“Daddy’s grandma lived until she was 105,” I said. We were flat on our backs, under the blue glow of the nightlight, which beams our solar system onto the ceiling.

“Then what happened?” Didi asked. “Then she died.” “How can we take care of you so you won’t die?” Didi asked.

My heart ached. I didn’t want to have such a weighty conversation before bedtime, didn’t want to upset the twins, but I didn’t want to lie. “Everybody dies,” I said.

They fell silent. “What does it feel like when you’re dead?” Didi asked.

“It feels like nothing,” I said. Being dead wasn’t like a video game, I warned. “You can’t start over. Don’t try it.”

I feared that our daredevil might attempt it — say, by running into the street — to test death out the way he likes to fiddle with every knob and switch in the house. He promised he wouldn’t.

Over drinks, a friend with boys the same age told me that the question had come up in his household, too. At first he’d tried to dodge it by bringing up the concept of reincarnation. Eventually, he told his children about a man in Asia who had reportedly lived until 150. Probably fake news, but they decided if they worked hard at eating healthy and exercising, as a family, they could live just as long — or even longer.

Morbid as it sounds, after I became a mother, after my father died, I began thinking about death more often. While reading obituaries, I check to see whether the deceased was older, the same age or younger than my loved ones. In the past three weeks, someone I’ve known since the first grade died, as well as a classmate from high school and another from college, and a dear friend just lost her mother.

I take in every news clip about the untimely deaths of babies and toddlers, stories I might have missed before having children. I was haunted by the 9-month-old twins in Syria who died in the chemical attack, and couldn’t get past the headline about the boy crushed in the revolving restaurant in Atlanta. Sometimes it feels like we’re drowning in pain, in terrorist assaults, in school and police shootings.

Lately, I’ve been even more on edge, worrying about the demise of the planet following U.S military strikes in Syria, the mega-bomb dropped in Afghanistan and saber rattling on the Korean Peninsula.

After the presidential election, when I wrote friends about getting together, their replies often had a bit of gallows humor. “Looking forward to meeting up!” they say. “If we’re still around.”

The joke’s not so funny anymore.

In the years since the twins first asked about death, they’ve continued their probing.

“What do you look like when you’re dead?” Didi asked.

“Like you’re sleeping. Your eyes are closed, but you’re not breathing,” I said.

Later on, we were driving somewhere when I noticed him slumped in his booster seat, his eyes closed.

“Didi! Are you asleep, Didi?” I asked. Ever since he was an infant, he has fallen asleep easily in his car seat, and although we’re long past regular naps, he still conks out in the car.

“I’m pretending I’m dead,” he said. His tone was matter-of-fact.

My husband and I exchanged a glance. To Didi, death is a mystery of the world he’s trying to get a handle on — a phenomenon worthy of consideration like gravity, multiplication or dinosaurs. One of the many mysteries we are delving into as a family.

When I’m feeling troubled, getting outdoors, volunteering and spending time with my family has always been a balm. To mark Earth Day, on Saturday, April 22, we’re planning to help clean up a creek that glimmers and gushes through our town. Maybe you’ll join the March for Science, or get out to a national park, where admission is free this weekend?

Small acts, taken collectively, will sustain us, now and in the future.

I didn’t want to upset the twins, but I didn’t want to lie. “Everybody dies,” I said. They fell silent. “What does it feel like when you’re dead?” Didi asked.