Mourning Pie

C2 and I love to watch Alton Brown's Good Eats together and last week we watched a show about making pie. This was strangely appropriate since thoughts of my Grandparents were fresh in my mind (you can't think about Grandmother without thinking pie).  He asked if we could make one and I thought it might be a fun family activity, so away we went.  Little did I know how "deep" making pie could be.  We had a lot of fun making the crust.  C1, C2, and C3 all took turns measuring and adding ingredients.  It turned out fine, so we set it aside until the next day to make the filling.  As we were working around the stove-top creating a not quite perfect facsimile of my Grandmother's chocolate pie masterpieces, C2 busts out with, "I want to die."  Not exactly something you want to hear come out of your 5 yr old's mouth, and yet not at all surprising after the death of Granddad and his sister last week.  Not knowing exactly what to say, I asked why he thought he wanted to die.  It seems he wants to play with dragons and dinosaurs and thinks they must be in heaven since they aren't here.  Also, there's the side benefit of getting to see Granddad and Grandmother.  We started talking about how Granddad was probably up there right then enjoying a nice piece of Grandmother's famous pie.  (I'm of course crying by this point.)  And that led to a pretty amazing talk about heaven and what it will be like and how wonderful it will be to be there someday in the (distant) future, how hard it is to miss people when they die, and how wonderful it is to know where they are and that we will without question see them again someday.  All this from watching a cooking show with my 5 yr old son.  Who would have thought I'd have such a wonderful time of teaching, reminiscing and learning with my children while "playing" in the kitchen?  Making mourning pie was very therapeutic for all of us.