what_the_stars_see ovenbird When my daughter creeps into my room she is haunted. Her eyes are sheltering a thousand tears. She hovers by the doorway, her small voice teeming with existential dread, and she says, “Are you afraid to die?” I pause for a moment then tell the truth. “Yes,” I say, “I don’t know what it will be like to die, so that scares me.” The tears she has been holding spill out all at once. “I don’t want to NOT BE,” she cries. I don’t know how to mix a potion of honesty and consolation that will soothe her. I try a well worn approach of atheists everywhere and say, “We came from the stars and we will go back to the stars. You will be a part of the universe that birthed you. You’ll never be nothing.” She doesn’t buy it. “But stars can’t SEE,” she points out. “I want to have eyes so I can see the world. I want to have ears so I can hear. I want to love everything.” I can’t discount her fears because they are my own. She understands that our human ability to witness is rare. She sees it for the gift it is and is not keen to lose it. Our ability to witness and make meaning and exercise introspection is so tied up in the fundamental experience of consciousness that we can’t imagine another way of existing. At eight years old, my daughter understands this, and she’s terrified. I try another approach: “Can you remember what it was like before you were born?” “No. There was nothing.” “Exactly, and did you mind that nothingness?” “No, because I couldn’t mind.” “I think when we die we will go back to a state of pre-birth. We will be pure atomic potential again. And we won’t mind at all. There will be no pain and no worry and no fear.” She still looks skeptical. “Being alive is hard, isn’t it?” I ask. “It’s so hard,” she whispers. Then desperately, “What will I do when you die?” “You will grieve,” I say, “and then you will keep living, because there is nothing else to do.” She throws her entire weight at me and I catch her in my arms and we’re holding on to the brief expressions of consciousness that we are, feeling the strange solidity of each other’s bones, wondering at the fact that we exist at all. The fear is still in the room with us but we let it in, invite it over for a group hug, bury our faces in its hair. It softens just a little and then we keep on living because, truly, there is nothing else to do. 250605 what's it to you? who go blather from