While the concept of an afterlife is not unknown to Xena, when her Great Grandmother died, we decided to be as factual as we could (in age appropriate terms, of course!) and told her that death happens to everything that is alive and it means that the person who has died won't be coming back. We won't be able to visit with them or see them anymore, but we will always have them in our memories and our hearts.

She absorbed this information about as well as any four year old could and then decided that it was information that everyone should know! But I don't think anyone is truly prepared for a toddler to remind them of their own mortality out of the blue!