As the line zigzagged back and forth, I was greeted with pictures of a beautiful, smiling couple, obviously in love. They were surrounded in the pictures by four adorable, spunky kids. One of the pictures was taken on the beach, less than week ago. The family was barefoot, smiling, with arms and hands interwoven. But now, the man in the picture was lying in the casket at the end of the line. At age 37, his life had been snatched away by a car crash.

When my turn came, I hugged his sweet widow, and whispered, “He was such a good man.” He truly was. He was a great daddy and a kind husband. He served at church and in the community. His tragic death will create shockwaves for decades to come.

When I arrived home after the visitation, my teenage son and his friends were playing with air soft guns in our yard. They crouched low and ran from bushes to trees, obviously trained (by movies and video games) on the correct posture for a shooting match.

Inside, my other teen was watching a war movie with his friend. More guns; more shooting. I happened to arrive just as the film projected images of a man, freshly shot, being buried in the ground. Because we use filtering software, we were spared any gruesome, blood spattered imagery, but the message was clear. This man had died, and the people in the scene were glad about that.

I was struck by the contrast. I had just witnessed a real, live scene, where death was sickening and devastating. And then I stepped into a scene where death was a game, and witnessing death was entertainment. It makes me wonder if real life and pretend life should be quite as different as they seem.

I’m no expert on desensitization of children, but as a mom, I can tell you intuitively that watching or acting out stories of death does not help my teens prepare for real death.

And perhaps being desensitized hinders them from truly considering death.

I don’t have any additional funerals penciled onto my calendar right now, and nor do you. But we know they are coming. At any moment, death can snatch someone we hold dear. Which means the time to prepare our kids is now. But for many of us, the screens that fill our kids’ lives are talking to them more about death than we are.

As a parent, I don’t want my kids to gather all of their ideas about death from screens.

I want them to hear my heart and be influenced by me. Death is the loss of life. It’s real and it’s final. Life is precious and valuable and worth protecting, not discarding. This is what I want to communicate. But how?

I don’t think throwing out all of the air soft guns or vetoing any movies or video games that depict death is the answer.

Perhaps I should veto some, but I want to do more than edit what my kids see. I want to impact how they think. You, too? Here are some ideas to get us started:

• Watch some movies with your teens that demonstrate the preciousness of life and the horrific loss of death. Talk together about life and death.
• Take your teens to funerals. If you can, start with the funeral of someone they don’t know well. Funerals remind us of how uncertain life is, and help keep us well oriented.
• Join or support an organization that protects life or fights for human rights. Involve your kids. Bribe them with a steak dinner (I’m not above this!) afterward. Do what you can to help your kids rub shoulders with other people who are passionate about protecting life.
• Talk, talk, talk. Put a movie on pause. Put an air soft war on hold. Put a selfish agenda on the back burner. Talk to your teens about the preciousness of life. Do it tonight. Don’t wait for tomorrow.

Life and death is a constant theme in entertainment. But the real “life and death” discussions should take place at our kitchen tables, and in our cars and family rooms. They should happen in real life, not just on a screen.

“Kiss your loves tonight,” my widow friend posted on Facebook. “Life is so precious.”

Precious, indeed.

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