I agree with you Dude that simple and straightforward is best. I find that the more vague and evasive I am, the more interested DD and DS become and the more info they want.
I also heartily agree lucounu that we are a death-averse society, preferring to pretend that we can all stay young forever. I had a consuming fear of death as a child and have tried very intentionally to teach my kids that death is a natural part of life.
It's particularly important in our family because DH and I both work in the criminal justice system where death is a regular part of our professional lives. DH defended a death penalty case for 3 months this year and we had lots of family discussion about that issue at the dinner table. My approach for all these issues has been to give basic, kid-edited information. Sometimes really bad things happen to kids in my world and that's much harder to explain and gets more heavily edited. Neither DD nor DS has an anxiety problem which would complicate these matters much more.
My professional life still has much less death and mayhem than say, "The Avengers" movie. Our society often glamorizes violence as entertainment. I also want my kids to understand that real violence is not at all entertaining and results in tragedy and loss to real people.
