My son is currently grappling with the existential question of infinity. The fact that he is five years old doesn’t make this any less troubling or indeed profound. If anything he doesn’t shy away from the hard questions. What is the last number? How old is God? Does God wear clothes?
As any parent of a five year old knows – excuse me, five and a half year old (they are nothing but rigidly precise when it comes to age) – there is no shying away from a question tickling their brain.
-But what IS the last number- just tell me and then I’ll know.
-I don’t know what it is.
-You don’t know? Then who knows? Who’s in charge?
I get him to think of the biggest number he can think of. This is somewhere around 800. I add one to it. He gasps. He gets it. He keeps on thinking of bigger and bigger numbers. I eventually find myself adding one to a bazillion gazillion thousand hundred million and eleven. We still haven’t reached the last number.
The concept of infinity is being to take shape. The thought of infinity in numbers coupled with the idea of God takes on new dimensions. What age is God he demands. I have to admit defeat on that one also. I don’t even dare to introduce the question of whether or not God even exists. I’ll wait until he’s a teenager to blindside him with that one. The age of God is only part of the interrogation of time and numbers that is currently the focus of what passes for intellectual life in our household.
Having celebrated a landmark birthday within the last year it is impossible to now pretend that I am merely 21. My son, with the determination of a 5 and half year old age zealot, has taken to announcing my age when we meet new people. This is common practice between children as they endeavour to establish the true age hierarchy amongst themselves. For adults, particularly women, this is a less savoury pastime than exchanging dress sizes. I try and tell him that my age is a secret. This is a mistake. It also makes no sense to him whatsoever. And as he knows that he’s not really going to get into BIG trouble for divulging my age, he gleefully proclaims it in company. Loudly, twice, in case anybody missed it the first time. He’s happy to absorb my raised eyebrow and deadly laser beam eyes for the sheer pleasure in wrong-footing me.
My mother, who has more experience in these matters, has told her grandchildren that she is 21 and a thousand months. The younger ones are still trying to work it out although one got her sums wrong and came out with a figure of 81. This horrified my mother who is many, many years from that age. The fact that officially I am now older than my mother doesn’t seem to bother my son which makes me inspect the mirror for signs of premature aging.
Back to infinity. I realise that the questions about numbers and ages and God are also in their way questions about death and dying. We do occasionally talk about death and what happens when you die but I know that there is, as yet, no understanding of mortality. When my grandfather died my niece who was then also 5 and a half made him a beautiful card saying Good Luck in Heaven. My son expresses the desire to die “just for 5 minutes so that I can see what God looks like and then I’ll be straight back I promise.”
It gets confusing and I’m the adult. Coming across a picture of the Grim Reaper I found it difficult to explain who he was and what he did.
-He’s Death I said. When you see him coming it means you’re going to die.
-Is he the same as God? Is he real in the world?
-Oh no I said but then racked my brains – are the Grim Reaper and Death and God the same thing? Are they real? Should they be? If giants and ogres are, why should we shy away from Death?
I needn’t have worried. I heard him explain to his little sister that this was the Grim Peeper and that if you look at him he dies.
After days of agonising over who could possibly know the last number and, simultaneously, give him a decisive answer on God’s age, he crept up beside me and snuggled in.
I figured it out he said. I know what age he is: God IS the last number.
And that was the most profound thing I’d heard in months.
Elaine Sisson
Broadcasted RTE Radio 1 on Sunday Miscellany August 2005