Death Again

"Dad?"

Said the Boy the other night as he was cleaning his teeth for bed.

"Yes?"
"What age are you when you die?"

Now that's not a question you want to have to answer when you've got to get the Kids into bed before you have a pizza. Still, I believe in answering most of the Boy's questions.

"Well, most people die in their seventies and eighties. Although some people die much younger, and some people live to be over a hundred. And then they get a telegram from the Queen."
"Which kills them off."
"Er. No."

The Boy hasn't asked many questions about this recently. The Girl however is still very much in the "Your Dads dead, isn't he dad?" phase. Which can be a bit brutal in it's matter-of-factness. So, to give the Girl some kind of background we took her and the Boy to my Father's grave this weekend. Not the whole weekend, mind. We did other things.

I hadn't been there for about four years, I'm not mad keen on revisiting my Father's grave site, but the Kids set about it like we were going to Centre Parcs for the day. This was fine save for the fact that they decided to pretend to be dogs for the first ten minutes kind of clashed with the atmosphere. A bit.

Still, my Ma and I introduced them to my Father's headstone, with the Boy looking less baffled than I would have expected him to. They both said hello, it was nice. Weird, but nice.

Then we took a stroll around the rest of the graveyard, while the Boy and Girl asked me a lot of questions about death. Eventually, we got back to the car, got in and as I was about to pull out of the graveyard the Girl said;

"I've got a shell!"
"Oh, right..."

And then I got a sinking feeling.

"Where did you get it from?"
"One of those."

And she pointed to a grave. And she couldn't remember which one. And she threw a wobbler when I said we had to take it back.

I mean, my Kids are many things, but I hadn't expected them to turn into grave robbers.

When we got back to my Mum's place we found two of her neighbours talking. It transpired that someone in the street they had known since I was seven had died. We made the right kind of sympathetic noises, and then the Boy said;

"We've just been to the graveyard! Which hole was he in?"

And then the Girl said;

"I've got a shell! I got -mumph!"

As I put my hand over her mouth.

Still all this chaos and mayhem has made me realise something.

I really miss my Dad.