So, yesterday evening, #5 was sitting on my lap and chatting away about her day. (In school, she “didn’t get on well with the colour green” in the morning, because she had had a dream about a green snake chasing her, but by the afternoon she “got on okay with green again”, after a few games of imaginary football with her classroom assistant. Ooookay.)

(What I did there… You saw it…)

In the middle of it all, she asked me if Rolo was going to die. I said “No! Of course not!”, before backtracking slightly and adding “… well, I mean, we’re ALL going to die sometime… but no, he’s not going to die anytime soon if we can help it!” Because, autism. She will take things so literally, so even if that dog lasts another 10 years, she will want to know why I lied to her and said that he wouldn’t die.

The conversation continued, “Well, I don’t want to die…”, to which I commented something about how we’ll go to Heaven to live with God so it’d be okay, that out of all of us she has managed to dodge death on numerous occasions (another story for another day) and it’s nothing to worry about or be afraid of.

“Will Rolo go to Heaven too?” Mumble mumble, something non-committal about doggie heaven, mumble mumble…  This seemed to pacify her somewhat, and she sat there watching TV for a little bit. Until #4 came into the room…

“#4, I’ve got good news and bad news…”
“What is it?”
“The good news is we’re going to go and live with God. The bad news is, we’re gonna diiiiieeee…”

Way to break it to her gently, oh daughter dear!

I get the feeling we may well have another philosopher in the family.