Refusing to Talk About Death; Death Isn’t Rumpelstiltskin

The other day in a parenting group, someone asked a question about having life insurance on your minor child. I was not surprised by the number of people who couldn’t fathom why that would be necessary—the death of a child isn’t something we often talk about, nor the idea of the costs involved in planning for a child’s funeral. (They are incredibly expensive, by the way.)

But then there was another group of people in the conversation; ones who said that talking about this subject at all was “bad juju”. Which is of course ridiculous.

Refusing to talk about or even consider that death happens is not going to keep it from happening. Death isn’t Rumpelstiltskin. It doesn’t work that way.

The only thing that happens when we refuse to consider the possibility of death, is that we refuse at the same time to plan for it, or prepare. We refuse to arrange for some fairly necessary things like life insurance. Or safe pregnancy.

And in so doing, we leave ourselves in greater distress when these things do happen. Because everybody dies, eventually.

Even if we don’t want to talk about it.

Refusing to talk about or even consider that death happens is not going to keep it from happening. Death isn’t Rumpelstiltskin. It doesn’t work that way.

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