Discovery of Death

A few months ago, my son and I were playing outside his poh poh gong gong's house. We were playing hide and seek. While I was hiding, I saw a dead bird in front of me. Soon enough when Z found me, I decided to introduce him to the meaning of death.
I pointed out to the bird who was nothing but lifeless. I told Zachariah 'bird has died. no more bird'. He then pointed to the bird and said to me 'bird died' and I nodded back in agreeance. We both stood there in silence gazing in pity of the bird.

I felt it was time that his colourful, joyful world needed to be exposed to its contrary. He needed to know that life would not always be so beautiful; That where there is beauty, there is darkness; Where there is life, there is death.

From that day on, every time he saw something motionless (eg. when I'm reading him a book and it's a man sleeping on the couch), he would point to it and say 'he died..' and I would have to help him differentiate between sleep and death. It's definitely not an easy task to explain to a 2.5y.o the meaning of death and I pray that he will not be exposed to death for a very long time...