The Meaning Of Life

The question of the day..........What is the meaning of life? 

Yesterday, when I picked up my youngest son, he was slightly upset. He began to question me about being a good person, what the meaning of life was and what happens to us when we die. Talk about huge questions! 

He began his questioning with thoughts about how we are not immortal but cartoon characters are. I then explained to him how that is fantasy but we are real people. If you cut my arm I am going to bleed or if you hit me over the head with a frying pan it may just kill me. He understood that but then he began to talk about dying. I told him that we were all going to die one day and he began to cry and he said to me "What if I saved you right before you saw the God"? I said "Well, I will still be alive". He seemed to cry harder. 

So I had to go into black and white mode. With Robert, who is on the autism spectrum, I have to be logical, not emotional when explaining concepts to him because he doesn't understand. So I began to explain how our body is a shell that houses our soul/spirit and how when we die we go to Heaven but it is our soul/spirit that goes to Heaven. He seemed okay with this but was still questioning the whole concept. I finally told him we are not meant to understand everything in the world, there are things that even I as an adult struggle to understand. This seemed to calm him down a bit about the whole what happens after we die. 

Then later when we got home he was still struggling to understand the things we talked about on the ride home. This is when he said to me or asked me "Have you always played it straight" when it comes to the kind of life that you have lead or are leading. Wow! I then told my son how, yes, I have always played it straight with my life because I am basically a good person and so is he. To play it straight for me means to be kind and be nice to other people. I told him that I had taken risks but he didn't seem to care about that part, all he cared about was that I was a good person. 

Then the whopper of all statements............. My son told me (and I am going to bold this) I know the meaning of life. I laughed a little and I asked Robert what it was. He said "the meaning of life is that you have to play it safe and be a good person and find your own way and have fun". I told Robert that was awesome and he said he saw it on The Amazing World of Gumball. It is amazing to me that he heard that and has been thinking about it for so long.