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Movies and Essential Conversations: There is much to be enjoyed by family members of every age when watching the movie, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, together. The main character is a writer who is doing a magazine article on Mr. Rogers. It is based on the true story which included that the writer's father was dying and the family did not know how to have a conversation about his impending death. Mr. Rogers says, "Death is something that many of us are uncomfortable speaking about. But to die is to be human. And anything human is mentionable. Anything mentionable is manageable."

This simple wisdom rings especially true for parents for having conversations with your children about death. By having conversations about a topic that is uncomfortable for so many of us, we are giving our children a great gift that will serve them and us when we need it most.

I am reminded of this due to the recent and untimely deaths of young people from our parish as well as our family experience when our 23 year old son Vincent died suddenly 20 months ago. In the pain and anguish of that moment, our children were able to draw upon the many conversations that we had along the way about death and its meaning. Learning how to think about death and how to have conversations about death is difficult at any time, even more so when children and families don't have the tools because they haven't had those conversations.

By having conversations about death and dying with each other and with our children along the way, we are opening the door for their mentioning their thoughts and fears which can in turn lead to managing them as people of faith. When we embrace the amazing gift of life and the truth that nobody knows the day or the hour when we leave this world, it can lead us to value each other more and to treat each other with kindness and dignity every time we are together.