Bizarre Kid

And now for today's latest freaky-deakiness (don't believe that's a real word, but I like it).

From time to time, Spilly surprises/scares us with insights we don't expect. Today's zinger comes to us courtesy of Tchaikovsky. While we were we were working hard on our sticker book at the kitchen table, I put on his Pathetique Symphony.

I said, "This man was very sad. You can hear how sad he was in the music."

"Why was he so sad?"

"I don't know exactly," I said. "He just had a lot of worries. Can you hear them in the music?"

Spilly has a lot of worries herself. I could tell this interested her. We spent some time listening to the music and discussing what each part was saying, till Spilly said, "Is he dead?"

"Well, yes. He lived a long time ago." Death is a subject she keeps returning to these days.

"Was he killed?"

"No," I said. "He wasn't killed!"

"Maybe," she struggled to find the words, "Maybe himself killed him."

So that's when my heart skipped a beat, since in fact some people think Tchaikovsky might have committed suicide. But why would the thought even cross a four-year-old's mind? Where would she have met up with the concept of suicide in the first place?

When I told my hubby, he said, "She picked it out of your mind."

"I didn't say anything about suicide! I just said he had a lot of worries!"

"I know," he said. "She picked it out of your mind."

Or out of Tchaikovsky's mind, I guess.