Why kids are so good at reminding us of our mortality

“The birds from the empty cages probably died,” my five-year-old said to me without a hint of emotion.

Our homework sessions can be challenging at times, but they aren’t typically quite so morbid.

“Circle the birdcages with zero birds,” the instructions said. Before I had even finished reading the words out loud, my son reacted eagerly and began to scratch away at his paper, circling the empty birdcages.

My five-year-old’s spirit is irrepressible. Often too much so. On more than several occasions, I’ve paused in the middle of an argument, standoff, or near-nuclear meltdown to reflect that his spirit could use a little pressing.

Like, maybe I could just stick that spirit into a panini press and squeeze it back into a more manageable size?

Don’t get me wrong. I love him dearly, and I am constantly in awe of his spirit, curiosity, and kindness. But because I’m a jaded and sometimes melancholy adult, his eagerness and liveliness can be terribly exhausting.

When he was done circling, he looked up and made the remark about the poor birds’ fate.

I laughed, but he was completely unfazed. To him, the birds’ deaths weren’t funny or sad or even particularly meaningful. They just were.

Things are different for me. Aging and death are never far from my mind. And when you obsess over the impermanence of everything, sentimentality is a constant companion. Even the death of a few fictional pet birds that were probably beloved and may or may not have been named Polly and Peter can make you feel a twinge of melancholy.

Unfortunately, when you have children, these tremors of aging-induced sadness always seem to linger right beneath the surface. Like yellowed leaves floating on a pond in autumn.

There are many things I didn’t know before I became a parent. I didn’t know that school curriculum nights would become the highlights of my social calendar or that reading could be a contact sport. But perhaps most of all, I had no idea that children remind you of your own mortality almost constantly.

Sometimes it’s as subtle as glancing at the wall in your kitchen and seeing the little pencil marks labeled with dates that start a few feet off the floor and now somehow reach up to your shoulder. Other times, it’s as blunt as a filter-free five-year-old proclaiming that the key actors in his math problem have permanently migrated to bird heaven.

But still, even though my children’s sheer existence reminds me every day that nothing lasts — in particular: loaves of bread, clean floors, and my sanity — their spirit reminds me how important it is to live even in the face of constant uncertainty.

Because when you get down to it, there’s nothing to do but keep plugging along in this life. And be glad you’re not one of those dead birds from the math problem.

At least, not quite yet.