At five, at six, I knew that the cemetery was full of dead bodies rotting away in boxes under the ground, and I knew that I would be one of those bodies under the ground one day, too. I could imagine myself dead; I could imagine it, and I did….Sometimes I would force these thoughts upon myself as if to test their power, or my power to resist them.
For the Paris Review, Rachael Maddux explores how children think of death.
It’s part personal essay, part science journalism, all dark, and all captivating.
