This is not really a perspective but a story I'd like to share with all of you.  Just part of what my days are like.  :-)
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It started last Friday when Chickie and I walked to WalMart (well she didn't walk all the way but Grandmas are made to carry grand kids when they get tired - unless, of course, they are sixteen).  Anyway, we passed by the local cemetery and Chickie wondered who the people buried there were.  I told her I didn't know but their names were on their tombstones.  She wanted to go in and read the names but I told her we would have to wait till our next adventure since we still had a way to go to get to WalMart.  On we went.
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If you haven't been in the Halloween aisle at WalMart you must go.  Look for the little (ok so he's about 10 inches tall and not so little) rat in a box.  Push on his left foot near the toes.  This thing is hilarious.  He dances while singing Wild Thing.  I have to get this for my Halloween collection.  Too awesome.
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When April showed up to pick her up the following Thursday (I watch her Tuesday and Thursday mornings) we were discussing the cemetery and April said we would have to talk about that first.  She then told me Piggy was making coffins.  I told her it was probably nothing to worry about since it was close to Halloween and coffins were plentiful in all the stores.  April then said, "No Mom, she's making coffins and burying her Barbies!"  I laughed.  I couldn't help it.  I really couldn't.  That was not the right thing to do.  ;-)
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Later on it hit me that Piggy was doing what she had seen done on Little Bear.  Any of you who watch with your children/grandchildren/nieces/nephews or other children may remember the episode where Emily's doll "dies" and they have a funeral only to have her revived before the actual burial.  Piggy was reenacting something she saw on tv.  I immediately called April who was relieved.  We planned our trip to the cemetery for Saturday morning.  The moral here is that even the most innocuous tv shows aimed at pre-school kids really do have an effect on them.  Watch what your children are watching.
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Saturday we we began our adventure by going to get donuts and chocolate milk.  (We live by "vacation rules" when they stay here for just one night).  After breakfast we walked through the cemetery reading names and talking about the information on the headstones.  They touched the tombstones and talk about how they were smooth and cool.  It is not a morbid trip...just a trip to quench their natural curiosity about cemeteries and the people buried there.  Piggy talks about "funeral boxes" (caskets) and we walk for what seems like forever.  We came upon one grave and from the distance I thought it must be a child's grave.  I can see numerous toys there - porcelain Perriot Clowns, religious icons & flowers so we walk over.  Right there at the front corners of the marker are two Hot Wheels.  One is an older (80's) McDonald's 57 T-Bird and the other is a silver metallic Porsche Carrera that is new.  After reading the inscription I realize the man was 29 years old when he died.  Is this how his family remembers him?  As a man who loved life and the joys that those little toys gave him.  The girls curiosity is quenched.  The only desire they have to go back is to place some Hot Wheels on the headstone with the other Hot Wheels.  I am not planning on having a service when I go but I think it would be wonderful if my headstone/grave site told something about me like this young mans did about him.   Trish