CONVERSATIONS WITH NICK ABOUT OUR ANCESTORS

NICK: Daddy?

ME: Yes.

NICK: Tell me about everything that’s dead. Tell me.

ME: Like… you mean dinosaurs?

NICK: Everything else.

ME: Do you know what ancestors are?

NICK: Tell it.

ME: Well, my daddy had a daddy. And that was my grandpa. And his daddy had a daddy. And his daddy had a daddy. And it just keeps going a long, long time ago and those were our ancestors.

NICK: Tell me about your grandpa and grammy.

ME: Oh…uh…okay. Well you know where my grandpa worked?

NICK: Where?

ME: On trains.

NICK: Toy trains?

ME: Nope. Real trains.

NICK: NO KIDDING!

ME: Yep. And my grammy made dresses.

NICK: WHAT??? HOW???

ME: With a sewing machine.

NICK: Are they dead?

ME: Yeah. They died a long time ago.

NICK: Are they in heaven?

ME: If there’s a heaven, they’re definitely there.

NICK: Where we go when we die?

ME: I don’t know. No one really knows.

NICK: Well can you figure it out by thinking?

ME: Not really. But I hope we go somewhere. I just don’t know.

NICK: Maybe we could tip-toe and sneak around in the dark and then we wouldn’t die.

ME: You think so?

NICK: Uh-huh. Also, we could get wooden legs.

ME: Wooden legs?

NICK: Uh-huh. That way we could walk and be dead BUT we could also be alive because we could walk.

ME: So we’ll just get wooden legs.

NICK: Uh-huh.

ME: Problem solved.