people

Being told as a child that heaven was in the sky, I was extremely confused why people started laughing at me when I asked if you had to wear spacesuits when you died.

Captain Awesome McPants

I had this belief that when someone died they didn't actually die but just took a really long nap. I figured that was why my grandma's coffin looked like a really comfortable bed and that it was just like a coma where you could never wake up. I figured that I should say good-bye anyway, though I wasn't sad because she must have having pleasant dreams to not respond to us.

Anon

I was approximately 5, when we watched the news. I heard that a singer commited suicide. I asked my parents what this means. They said, he played with a gun, and he forgot if its 'on' or not. I thought exactly, that it was an accident, and I asked why would anybody play with a gun?I was 14 when my best friend told the truth.

Eva

When I was younger I was told never to watch any of my dads films because they were scary movies. When my dad had gone bed I sneaked downstairs and watched the clown film IT. From that day on I believe that everything I did the clown was trying to kill me like poisoning my food when no one was looking... of course only I knew about him but his plans never worked because my granddad (died from leukaemia) always stopped him. Now of course I laugh even at the thought of it! 😂😂😂

Kyle

When I was about 6, I had no concept of death, so I thought when it was time for someone to "move on", it was one of these three options- notice that I thought one was still conscious when these things happened.
1. Be burned alive (cremation). I thought of it as a person just calming sitting in a sea of flames, feeling the fire burn.
2. Be chopped into small pieces (saw a tiny coffin in a picture dictionary once). That option terrified me, with all the pain and what not.
I remember making up my mind, and saying "I wanna be burned instead of chopped to pieces."
Man, I was a hardcore first grader back then.

MetalFlower

When I was Little I was very much afraid to grow up. Even at the age of five years, I realized that when I grow up I'll be alone in this big, horrible world. This has happened. And I'm very much afraid of death. I was afraid that some of my relatives died. But the fear has gone with the time. I began To realize that this is an irreversible process.

Oleg

My grandma died when I was three years old, but I have always felt like I have a special connection with her because we share a name although I can't even remember her. When I was younger, I thought if I prayed hard enough God would direct me to my grandma and I could talk to her. At church, my parents would always ask me why I prayed for so long, but all I was trying to do was talk to Grandma.

Virignia

When I was little I saw a documentary about fungi and how they reproduce releasing spores, and how they decompose organic matter to get their nutrition.
I spent my whole childhood afraid of accidentaly breathing spores in and having a whole forest of mushrooms and other fungi growing inside my body, consuming it slowly from the inside out until I died.

Anon

When I was little I was terrified of dying so I decided that when I turned 20 (I thought this was the legal age at which you became an adult since 20 seems like a much more important number than 18) I would go to the North Pole and ask Santa Claus to make me immortal.

Anon

I used to believe cemeteries were "summerteries". In Maine, if a person died in the winter, the body was kept in a vault until the earth had thawed enough for burial - summer, or as pronounced in Maine, summah. We only went to the cemetery in the summer.

Lynne Murray Magee

When I was young, my Mom planted flowers on her relatives' graves. So one day she said to 4-year-old me, " We're going to plant flowers for great grandma."
I replied, "Yay, we're going to visit grandma!"
"You know grandma's not really in the cemetery," she said, worried about me.
"Of course! Her body is in the cemetery, but her head I'd in heaven!"
She swears I said this in a vice that suggested she was stupid.

Chris

I used to believe that colourful oil puddles on the road were squashed children and therefore always had to hold an adults hand when crossing.

diz

Back in high school i had to do a debate on "euthanasia" however never having heard the word before, thought my teacher said "youth in Asia". I spent 2 weeks working on a believable reason why youth shouldn't be allowed in Asia. The day of the debate i was so ready and well prepared that i told my teacher my group could go first. I realized my mistake only when the Chinese girl i was debating with ran out of the class crying.

Penelope

For years as a kid I was always confused when people talked about euthanasia. I heard it as 'youth in Asia' and always wondered why everyone talked about the kids over there.

Rob

I used to believe that if you were killed, you came back; but if you were murdered, you didn't. lol!

M.O. LeClair

I thought everyone lived to be exactly 100 and then died on their 100th birthday (if they didn't die from accident, murder etc before then) Later when I learned about life expectancy I thought everyone in that country lived to be exactly that age and then died.

Anon