My grandfather had been a gardener all his life and after he retired he taught me a great deal about gardening; tomatoe seed goes in, tomatoe plant comes out. Rose seeds go in, rose bushes come out. I thought it was a miracle.
He died when I was 8 and when they buried him I was mortally afraid that in a few months time, there would be a 'gradfather tree' on the cemetary, with copies of grandpa on the braches.

Anon

When i was little, i used to think that when you bought your grave plot, you bought a house in heaven to live in too!!!!

Anon

When I was little we used to live across the road from a graveyard, which was just over the hill from a river. I used to think that when the fog was rolling up, that was when the dead people were coming to get me.

Candice

whenever an important character in a movie dies, someone always rushes up to them and lifts their arm up to take the deceased's pluse. upon not finding one the person drops the deceaseds arm in dismay. i used to believe that the reason they were lifting the dead persons arm up was a way to test if they were really dead or not. if they were alive, the arm would stay up, if they were dead it would drop back down.
i had not yet discovered the concept of a pulse

1979

When I was in the 4th grade I read a book about spontanious human combustion and I was terrified that if I was ever alone that I would catch on fire and disappear before anyone knew what happened to me. I would scream if i had to bathe by myself(like i would catch on fire in water?)

Christina

i used to believe that when people said something like "so-and-so died when he was 84" or whatever age, that you actually died on your birthday. I pictured in my mind whoever it was with a party hat on in front of a cake and they just collapsed on the ground right there after they blew out the candles.

Pretty retarted huh?

I used to believe that you had to keep moving. If you kept still (like while you were sleeping) god would think you were dead. So whenever I went to bed I would always kick.

frank

You know the scene in "Star Wars, Return of the Jedi" where Yoda dies? I was born the year that movie came out (1983), so I was quite young when I saw it for the first time. Because Yoda's body disappeared when he died, I therefore believed that whenever ANYONE died, their body disappeared. Don't ask me what I thought cemeteries were for, because I didn't exactly think this through.

Allison

When I was in kindergarten, I had a friend named Acadia, who had really strong beliefs about god. One day she came up to me and said "have you been good all your life?" and I responded yes, so she said "see you in heaven!" and then high fived me. For the rest of that day, all I could think about was her dieing that night and how she would be up there waiting for me. I was sad because i knew I would keep her waiting for another 100 years or so.

still not dead!

When I was little me and my brother used to have a competition to see who would be the prime minister of the house for a week, and we had policies and debates [yes, as all children do]. One day when I was writing down some policies I saw on the news that someone had committed suicide and that it was tragic, and I thought that committing suicide was mass murder or something. Later on when we had out "debate" I proposed "Everyone that commits suicide should be put in prison for life"... oh my.

callie

When I was a youngster I thoght the
"bottoms" of dead people were
buried. This I couldn't understand, and was relieved when I saw her whole body, not just her "bottom", in the casket when my grandmother died!

Gene

I used to think that the meaning of life was to figure out what the meaning of life really is, and in that very moment that you do, you die. Therefore the smarter you are, the younger you'll die.

sara

I had an aunt who died when I was, um, four or five, I suppose. My mom told me when we would be going to the funeral and such. I was pretty nervous, because I was under the impression that, at the church, the body would be inside a glass coffin, suspended from the ceiling. To this day I have no idea where this bit of imagery came from.

mark

I was raised Catholic, and when I was very small, the Funeral Mass was very confusing. I was just getting to the age when I could understand what the priest was saying, and I came to the conclusion that the people receiving communion were actually eating the dead person. The really scarey thing is that I don't remember the idea bothering me!

Angela

When I was little, my older sister and I were looking at a sunset. She told me that the sky was red from the blood of all the dead people in heaven. I believed that for a long time.

Mary

My daughter plays alot of a game called Ratchet and Clank(I mean the whole series she is crazy about it) and in there if you get killed ratchet spins around and falls down. My daughter believes that when people die they all spin around and fall down. She still doesn't believe me when I say they don't

The Mother of a disbelieving Daughter

When I was young I used to believe if you died in the water, you'd become a mermaid.

stefanie

I have a brother who is about three years younger than I. When I was about five, he fell down and skinned his knee, and continued crying very loudly for a long time.

I turned to my mother and said, "Oh, I hope he doesn't suffer so much we have to shoot him."

I guess I thought the practice of putting animals out of their misery applied to humans as well.

Big Al

When I was about 3 & attending my grandmother's laying-out (at her home), I went over to her & touched her cheek. I did it VERY gently, & so got the erroneous impression that dead people were very soft--&, so, had apparently had their bones taken out! Being young enough to make this mistake I was neither surprised nor dismayed by it, & of course eventually learned better...but I remember thinking this was true for a long time.

Becky

I used to believe that any gravestones in the churchyard with big railings round them were for people who had been in prison and they still had to be behind bars even in death

M