Phey, am I recalling that this is your child with severe food allergies? Hmmm...
this is a pretty normal thing that all gifted kids seem to go through at earlier-than-comfortable ages... but I have to wonder if this is related to medical stuff and personal landscape.
This is one of those areas where being 2e can lead to some seriously thorny problems.
My DD has never had a time when she DIDN'T know that she could die, and sort of developed a gestalt surrounding mortality that stuns other adults. There was no point in lying to her-- she has nearly died, and the first time she was less than a year old. SO.
We often find that after a major event, she will go back to this negative place and cogitate on it a while.
Platitudes are not the way to handle this in a child who has a chronic and life-threatening condition, as I'm sure that you know.
Honestly, I probably wouldn't use religious reassurances much, either, in that case. I'd focus on the "why" of such concerns, not the "what." We didn't have a choice, because we are not theistic religious adherents, but in retrospect, DD has had no trouble with we believe that "there's nothing past this." We also included what OTHER human traditions believe, for perspective. DD considered this fascinating.
Mostly, we reassured her about the precautions and interventions that we can (and do) take to prevent death. That was really what she was worried about. She wanted a 100% guarantee, which we can't give. So we didn't. But we did give her a more complete picture with our personal lifestyle choices and statistics. Her personal risk of death-- annually-- is something about .1-1.0%. (Yes, this is far far higher than for most people, but it was enough to reassure her.)
She does not necessarily suffer a lot with managing Emotional OE, however. That would change things.
