We were talking about death yesterday evening

And one of my invitees was telling us about a sort-of-near-death kind of experience he had a long time ago. Only instead of seeing himself from above, like normal people, he was going down into a spiral hole and knew he had to climb back out of it if he was to live.

(May I just say here that if I was ever unlucky enough to die I would personally prefer the tunnel of light thing. Whatever, if it floats your boat.....)

Anyway, we were just comparing what we would see whilst dying (light, tunnel or otherwise) with a user-friendly computer interface, like Windows, and we were just saying that DOS was the equivalent of what we would really be experiencing, the language of which we cannot express because we don’t know DOS (deep huh?) when someone said;

“Coming back after that must feel like a second life I suppose”

So that’s when I thought of the girl in the picure. She is my god daughter in fact. We get on so well and I am proud to say that it was me who taught her to belch like the boys. She was 11 then (now 13.)

That same year we were alone and chewing the fat before she went to bed and she said “It must be really bizzare to be dead. I mean what is it like? You’re dead!”

I was about to respond with my scattered views on that, like we adults feel we have to when asked questions by children, even when we have no idea what we’re talking about, when she added in an upbeat voice “OK, but maybe we have two lives. We come back for a second life.” She sounded satisfied and relieved by her conclusion in a sort of yeah-that-must-be-it way.

Shooting her theory down in flames with my pitiless logic to explain that if that was true her great-grandad would still be around was not a viable answer option. Talk about a party-pooper. But I did want to keep the conversation going. So I ventured; “Yeah, but maybe this is your second life you’re living now.”

Long pause. Long. Very long. I helped her out. “Hey, but maybe there are three lives!!” I offered hopefully.

“Umm, yes, you’re right. Or even four or five?” she questioned timidly. She thought again, didn’t seem satisfied with what she’d just said, turned towards me and declared “This is complicated. I mean, all these lives.....”

Then she went to bed.

Two years later, here I am in front of the computer, reflecting upon the fact that whilst many of us adults worry gloomily and futilely (yes, I know that word does not exist) about dying, kids like my god daughter, and there must be many of them, are, on the contrary, feverishly busy trying to work out just how many lives they are going to live.

Ever wish you were a kid?