I had to suspend both boy's Facebook for a while. I keep an fairly close eye on it all the time because it is not built for children and they can easily spiral out of control. They treat it like a free for all gaming and social site but I have told them many times it is only there for keeping in touch with friends. The rest is out. So from time to time they lose that perspective and need to be reined in. At one point, Tio posted something so offensive that the police showed up at school to talk to him about it.
Earlier this week, Kit reposted something disturbing and revealing about his feelings toward my new medical condition. I have no idea where the post originated but it was a quote from a young boy who said he would commit suicide a couple of days before his mother died of cancer so he could meet her in heaven. It was supposed to be an expression of love but it was nothing of the kind.
Auntie saw it first and commented right away that no mother, dying or otherwise, would want their child to die before she did. She rightly pointed out that this is not an expression of love, it's an expression of desperation. I followed up her comments by explaining that, as I said the other day, a parent wants their life to continue through their children. That is how life goes on and if a mom has to die, she would be devastated to know that her child had killed himself because of it.
Kit is obviously thinking about losing someone from cancer and how he might deal with it. He's transferred my mortality to his mother, which is more visceral for him, and he doesn't think he could cope. It's an honest reaction, but a misplaced conclusion.
This is one reason I have a problem with imagining there is a heaven. Kit is thinking heaven is s place for those who have died to be together living a human life. So why not live there instead of here? He needs to understand that, in all Christian faiths, heaven is not a substitute for life on Earth. God wants us to survive and live life to the fullest until our time comes.
However, the underlying issue for him right now isn't Heaven and Earth. It's that the idea of cancer is scaring the bejesus out of him and I need to reassure him that no one is going to die suddenly.
