My 4-year-old granddaughter and I were talking one day about death. Her grandfather has cancer and I wanted to prepare her for the inevitable. She didn't like the idea of talking about Pappy dying.

But then we talked about how we all will die someday and we listed names of people close to her, including herself. I explained that each person will go at a different time. She thought for a moment. Then it all came together in her mind. "Oh, we take turns, right?" "Exactly right," I replied. Now that it made sense, she happily went out to play.