What does "die" mean?

A 13-year-old Australian boy died last week from eating something with peanuts. He was away at a camp, and out of his normal routine. The allergy folks do warn that the most allergy-related deaths
occur among teenagers, because of their higher risk-taking behaviours. This scares me, but it's still a decade away, so perhaps Andrew will have outgrown his allergy by then. (I'm eternally hopeful, but still frightened.) His allergic reaction last week has led to quite a bit of clinginess and neediness over the last few days.

And right after we got him home from the clinic, Andrew asked "what does die mean?" That's a question that no 3.5 year old should have in their head, let alone think to ask. So from what we can tell from his questions and behaviour, he's trying to deal with the concept of mortality. It's something I can barely think about, so I'm struggling along here.

And another news piece for all the new moms out there: Apples and fish reduce allergies of babies in the womb. I didn't eat much fish when pregnant with Andrew (afraid of all that mercury), but with Geoff I did eat some sushi every week.

Wouldn't it be ironic if all that advice for moms on what to eat was actually contributing to the allergy epidemic? I remember being told not to eat peanut butter, fish, caffeine, and a whole lot of other things. I thought that was tough back then -- and now I'm on an even more restricted diet (no dairy, very little soy, no nuts or peanuts) and it's not that bad.