He came in from snowmobiling and spilled it.
While out in the snow, he thought once he might die.
He is scared, he says, of how his nails and hair will grow after he is dead.
I tried to explain how it wouldn't matter. He wouldn't feel it.
For now, my words are worthless. "Please don't talk about heaven because my belly will hurt again."

Suddenly I remember him asking me last week on the way to school what happens if someone is buried alive.
I spent five miles explaining all the techniques one could use to make sure a person is dead. And now I recall the botched burial of our recently departed chicken Sleepy Cloud. Just as I was about to drop her in the hole, I thought I felt her move. I made quite a production of double-checking her vital signs. This set off a world of questions, including references to Michael Jackson's Thriller video.

So maybe Miles is suffering with graveyard fears more so than mortality issues.
I think I'll let Chris tackle cremation, his family's choice of post death body maintenance.

At bedtime last night Miles welled up. We were studying a book my friend published on the history of her family business. In it is a black and white photo of her grandmother, an infant at the time, taken nearly 100 years ago. Miles and I had been laughing just seconds before, trying to figure out how this tiny baby somehow grew up, had children, and became a grammie.
But when Miles asked if the grammie were still alive and I said no, the laughter died.
Will I die? he asked.
He knows the answer to this question. He seems pretty comfortable with the cycle of life concept. He sees a lot of birth-growth-decay of animals and plants at his nature-focused school. Talk of me and/or dad dying will make him cry, but that's about all that brings him down.
Usually.
"I don't want to die," he began to cry between phlegmy coughs.
I told him that we don't know what will happen after we die. I told him I heard heaven is the next stop and it will be filled with whatever we love. For you, Miles, that could be puppies and pizza and Grammie, and maybe pets who've passed like Silky and Sleepy Cloud and Chipper.
Miles pleaded the fetal position and said his belly hurt. We changed the subject to pilgrims, colonists, Dances With Wolves, Elf, fixing Santa's sleigh, and New Year's Eve parties.
This morning while watching Toy Story, Miles rubbed his belly and mentioned something about death. I stopped scrambling eggs and wondered what to say. In my silence, Woody's character spoke for me: "Save your batteries."
And I thought Thank you Woody.
I prepared my response. I will suggest we put our energy toward doing fun stuff while we are alive and not waste our precious batteries on worry.
We'll see how that goes. Miles is debate team material.

A Recurring Train

Miles said good night to the chickens. They were perched inside the coop, above his head. As he raised his arm to pet Big Red, his favorite hen, another chicken pecked Miles's wrist.
Big Red sat still, allowing my son to touch her ample chest feathers. If she could have purred, she would have.
"She never pecks you, does she?" I asked Miles.
"She never pecks anyone, right Ma?" Miles asked. I told him I couldn't recall her ever pecking a human.
"That's cause she's teached."
"Trained?" I suggested.
Trained, he repeated, smiling, closing the coop door.
Train.