people

When i was younger i used to think that RIP on a tombstone meant REALLY IMPORTANT PERSON. I thought that they were more important that VIP (VERY IMPORTANT PERSON.) I guess i didn't catch onto the fact that everyone had RIP on theirs.

Shaunna

When I was young, I saw a very tall gravestone and I asked my mom why it was so big. She replied "He must have had a lot of money" so for the longest time, I thought that when people died, all the money they had was kept inside the gravestone.

littleflower0624

When I was about 5, I heard some of my mother's friends talking about a man that had "bit the dust".I learned that phrase meant "to die". The thought scared me so horribly, I became an incredible neat freak at 6! I dusted my room everyday, in fear that one of my family members would "bite my dust"!

Chesney Parkker

I remember watching a TV programme where a guy was murdered by receiving 30 "blows" to the head. I thought this meant someone actually breathed on him heavily 30 times - so I tested it on my brother!!

BigSis

When I was six, I was in Catholic school. One day, shortly after lunch, the Principal, Sister Evangelista came to our door. She whispered something into my teacher, Sister Jeanette's ear. Sister Jeanette fained dead away. Several of us children helped Sr. Evangelista get her up. Sr. Evangelista then told us in hushed tones that President Kennedy had been shot, and we were to proceed quietly to the church, where we would all pray for the President. Orderly we filed to the church, and our little prayers began. I remember thinking "if he's been shot, he's dead already" so I quit praying and let my mind wander. Eventually I started making faces at the boy next to me and we were reprimanded sharply by our Sister. Sister hissed to us that if "President Kennedy dies, it will be your faults!" Well of course, you know the story. For many months, I thought it WAS our fault, since we failed to pray hard enough to save him.

Kevin Graves

I used to believe that manhole covers were grave stones for all the little children that didn't look both ways before crossing the street.

Sherry Scheuerman

When I was little, I used to believe that people died from gun shots and deep wounds because the wound was just big enough for the person's soul to get out and fly away. Because of that belief, I had a phobia of getting hurt or cut since 5th grade in fear that my soul might fly away.

Eliza

For some strange reason once when I got a cut, I was afraid that if I showered and the water touched my blood, I would die. I asked my mom about this, but she didn't seem to understand, so I drew a diagragm.

Alex

When i was very very young, not even in kindergarten yet, I had a favorite uncle who for what ever reason faked his own death, except that the whole family new it was faked. He showed up at his own wake with his dark grey hair bleached white where family members shook his hand and congratulated him.
For years after that i thought that when you died you changed your hair color and your family told everyone that came looking for you that you were gone.

dragonfly183

When I was younger, I went to my mom's friend's brother's funeral. I was really hungry, and my mom kept saying that we were going to leave soon. My grandmother kept telling me that my mom's friend's brother was going to heaven. So I stood in front of the coffin staring at the dead body for about 2 hours, until my mom came up to me and said, "UH, what are you doing?" and I responded, "I'm waiting for him to go to heaven!" I honestly thought that a ladder or staircase would come out of a mass of clouds, and the dead guy would get up and out of the coffin, wave to us then climb up to heaven.

Rachel

after my aunt died, i was really sad because i couldn't talk to her anymore. I remembered that on Lion King, Rafiki the monkey let simba talk to mufasa by touching the lake with his magic stick. i didn't have a lake or a magic stick so i would sit by the bath tub poking it with a broom tryin to talk to my aunt.

briana

I used to believe that you would get a letter in the mail and that told you that it was your time to die. I thought you would enter the big gates of the cemetary and then soldiers would come out at shoot you. What also supported my idea was the large gates and fences which I thought were there to prevent you from running out without being shot.

Susan P.

when i was little and on a family outing or trip
we were driving past a cemetary my dad would alwaysmake that corny old joke "thats the dead centre of [Birmingham/Chester/Liverpool etc]"
but i took it seriously and for years (and i mean, til like my early teens) i beleived that cemetaries had to be built in the actual centre of a town. like it was a rule or something.
until of course, me and some mates were on a school trip when we were 13 and got lost in the middle of birmingham, we knew that the train station in new street mustbe pretty centrally located so i helpfully suggested "well lets just look for the graveyard, thats the dead centre of town, the station should be nearby"
they had to point out the joke for about 5 minutes whilst laughing hysterically before i would beleive it wasnt actually true, i kept saying, no really, my dad told me, and was even really tempted to make up something like, hes a town planner or an architect or something to save face. oh god i am so embarrassed by this one!!!!

chrissydontsurf

when i was young i used to believe the meat we eat at funerals was of a dead person. i used to have problem eating at funerals....

OG

When I was three or four years old, I must have been anxious about the concept of burial, because I remember being told that only the body gets put in the ground, while the soul goes to Heaven.

I guess I didn't know what a 'soul' was, but I knew that my 'body' was all the parts of me other than my head; therefore, souls must be heads. I had this mental picture of headless bodies underground in coffins, and Heaven as a beautiful garden full of happy disembodied heads.

Several of my elderly relatives died when I was around that age, and I probably gave up on that idea when I went to an open-casket funeral and saw that the body in the coffin did still have a head.

Brenda

Once, when I was three, a distant relative of ours died. My mom and I went to the funeral after having a long conversation about death and what happens in terms that (she thought) a three-year-old could understand. She asked me, "So you know where people go when they die, right?" She expected me to respond with "Heaven". I nodded, very solemnly, and then replied with, "They go to Florida."

Ellie

There is a girl in our Year 3 class (8 yrs old) whose nan has sadly passed away recently due to a stroke.

We were obvoiously concerned about her, particulary as she was displaying some really odd behaviour soon after the death - she kept walking up to her class teacher, and gently patting her on the arm and then standing back and staring at her intently.

It took a while, but we eventually worked out that she didn't understand why her nan had died, and was seeing if she could kill her teacher by giving her a 'stroke'!

Mr Staples

When I was young, I never could understand how they could get the people pictured on the obituary pages to smile. After all, they were dead!

arline

Whenever I was bad, my mom would ask, "Do you want a spanking?!" I thought a "spanking" was when she and I would wear ninja suits and have a swordfight to the death. Since I didn't want to die that way, I always said no.

The_Journalsit

i used to think that every dead person had a cloud for a home and if all the clouds joined up someone was having a party

party in the sky