My children love talking about death. Some may call it morbid. But with these kids, it is just another topic of conversation, much like discussing what’s for lunch, or who hit whom first -and who hit hardest.
Safiyya was exposed to death from a young age. When she was just four years old, my friend’s little baby sadly died, around the time as another friend’s father passed away. But by Safiyya’s calculation, there was no need to be too sad: ‘Two people have died,’ she announced, ‘and three people haven’t.’ So it was all fine - there were more people alive than dead. (She only counted three people since there were only three of us in the car at the time!) She also felt she should take full credit for having a little brother who was alive: ‘I taught him how to breathe’, she said happily. I did attempt to explain that it is God who chooses who will live or die, and big sisters have very little to do with it, but I think the explanation fell on deaf ears.
When my oldest two were both walking and talking, they ended up with us on a Muslim convert group tour around our local Muslim cemetery, looking at the graves of early English converts to Islam and translators of the Qur’an. A group of children-including mine- started jumping on some graves. I was shocked. ‘But you told me the soul had gone up Mummy, so I thought nothing important was left,’ came Safiyya’s logical response. Asim told me he thought these people were now extinct, adding by way of explanation: ‘They just went up in the sky, along with the dinosaurs.’
Safiyya now aged 8, decides to educate her younger siblings that you can die any time, in fact any minute, in fact maybe after finishing tonight’s supper. Amaani is not convinced. ‘But Allah won’t let me die when I am eating carrots’, she protests. ‘Oh yes’, continues Safiyya without a hint of melodrama, ‘You can even die when eating carrots.’ Scary. Amaani understandably is in no hurry to die at all; she even wants to go to Heaven alive. This may well explain her current reluctance to eat carrots, or it may just be coincidence. I have told her that Prophet Jesus went to Heaven alive, but he was special: Amaani however likes to think of herself as pretty special too!
The children all know that Heaven will insha’Allah (God willing) be whatever they want it to be. A couple of years ago, the film ‘Finding Nemo’ was popular, so Asim, aged three at the time, had thought it would be fun to be surrounded by fish in Heaven. And then of course life moved on, as it does. Much later, his nursery teacher, confident that she was getting a closer understanding of my faith, approached me with her new-found knowledge: ‘Asim has told the class all about how he will come back as a fish when he dies.’ By this time, I had forgotten Finding Nemo and was trying to recall a theological basis for this prospective fish transformation. Or had Asim perhaps found some friends of another faith who had taught him about reincarnation? Then it all came back to me. What I did find funny was that the nursery accepted Asim’s ideas completely: they are clearly taught to respect everyone’s beliefs, no matter how unlikely they may seem.
Asim has moved on from fish, and now wants to be surrounded by copious quantities of Lego. I suspect he may move on again. He also takes great pleasure in putting us all in chronological age order, not just our family but integrating all his cousins too, and letting me know how he expects us all to die in that order, oldest (i.e. Daddy!) first. Today, I told Asim that the woman who helps us in our house was going away for a while, to visit someone who had died, attending their funeral. ‘Is she going to die now then?’ he asked, animatedly, having concluded that if you are going to visit a dead person you must first be dead yourself.
But in the meantime, we have to face an issue about a rite of passage very much rooted in this life rather than the Hereafter. Safiyya is in the position of having two boys vying for her attention, competing to buy her crisps and Coca-Cola from the school tuck shop (Jamie Oliver and his healthy school lunches campaign clearly hasn’t reached South Africa). I have explained she can’t marry either of them - and certainly not both - not only are they not Muslims, they are also only nine years old! Safiyya just gives me one of those looks that suggests I am really very old, and that I can’t have too long left on this Earth - especially if I carry on eating my carrots.
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