justorum animae

My 6yo has been seeing Halloween decorations going up for the past couple weeks, and this morning he woke me up to say if his great-aunt (who died 13 months ago) is just resting, that means she’ll come back to life, right?

And I was still half asleep, so all I could say was no, buddy, she’s gone (like, we’ve talked about this since it became clear she wasn’t going to get well again), and I wasn’t alert enough to explain that sure, we call cemeteries “resting places” and often the gravestones say “rest in peace” but it still does mean forever

And today is my dad’s yahrzeit and tomorrow is the anniversary (on the civil calendar) of the day he died, which means my guts are in knots and my anxiety is throwing itself around irresponsibly and all I want to do is lie down until Sunday, but I can’t, and on top of the things I have to do on my own schedule I have a first grader who is still grappling (as are we all) with the permanence of death

(to say nothing, of course, about how the whole world is on fire)