need some words of wisdom for my upset dd

[canella]

she's 8 and is getting upset each night that she might die in her sleep or one of the family might die. It all comes as one of my close friends died unexpectedly in her sleep when she was only 36 (although this was a year ago). They've also been discussing death at school in her religion classes.

Just need some words of wisdom to try to stop these feelings - i tried to tell her we are all healthy and although no-one knows when they are going to die i'm absolutely sure she'll not die in her sleep.

Any ideas of what else i could say?

Just bumping for you canella.

poor thing.
Has it been established what caused your friend to die?
Perhaps worth taking her to chat with a suitably briefed GP? who could talk about how very very rare such unexpected deaths are?
worth mentioning to the teacher, too.

aw thanks you 2 - i had just presumed that no-one was replying!

my friend died of Sudden Adult Death Syndrome - was absolutely healthy - her post mortem was completely clear and it was long time before they came to this cause of death. Her dc were about the same age as my oldest dc (they were 6 and 4 when she died) so it was obviously upsetting for my dd.

Dh is a doctor and has explained to her how rare it was but its hard for dd to understand that because to her it still happened. She was sobbing the other night that what if she died in the night or we died then we wouldnt have a chance to say goodbye - it broke my heart to think that she'd thought this through so much.

not sure there is any great words to say - had to just let her talk it through!