On 13 year olds and death...

I had the strangest conversation with my 13 year old son on the way to the cardiologist. I don't even know how we ended up talking about this...some random comment started it, I'm sure.

So, first we talked about faith. He wanted to know how I'd describe his faith. We talked for awhile and we decided he's an agnostic. (1: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god), and suddenly I remember how we got on this subject. He was wondering if, at his next surgery, when they knock him out and reroute the blood and he's "technically dead" for awhile, if he would "know" about death and God when he woke up. So that's how this started.

Then we talked about what happens if he dies. Not the emotional, mom tearing her hair out and screaming stuff, but the practical stuff. Do you want to be cremated? No, mom, please don't torch me. Do you want to be an organ donor? No, mom, they are mine, is that ok? I told him it was ok.

Then he went through a list of who gets what of his stuff. Bethany gets the playstation I and games for it back. Michael gets the playstation II and the games for it. I can give away or sell his tv, it's old. And Dylan (his friend at school) gets his WoW account.

I stayed calm throughout the whole conversation, outwardly, assuming we were discussing all of this because it needed to be discussed. Inwardly, of course, I was already screaming and tearing my hair out...

And I didn't sleep very well...