My preschooler is afraid of dying and talks about it incessantly. Please help!

This post is about my son (aged 3 and 3 quarters, as he would tell you), who is currently squatting in the corner of his playroom, surrounded by ignored toys muttering, "I don't want to die," over and over again. I'm wondering if any parents out there have been through something similar and can offer advice to help see us through to the other side (pun not intended).Probably-relevant backstory on my boy: he has an Autism Spectrum Diagnosis, but he is on the edge and in most obvious ways looks and acts more like a neurotypical child. He is also incredibly smart - because we pursued EI/ services he's been subjected to a battery of intelligence tests which place him in an average low 130's range, which is in the top 2-3 percentile. I think both of these might be playing into his early-onset existential crisis (and perhaps his inability to move past it).This all started a year ago after we watched the Pixar film "Up." In the beginning of the movie there's a beautiful musical montage showing the main character's life story, and at the end his wife, Ellie dies. My son asked me what was happening and I explained that his wife had died. "Why?" he asked. "Because she was very old," I explained to my then 2-year-old. The very next morning, he told me he didn't want to go to daycare because "my teacher is kinda old and might die soon." I kind of laughed it off and filed it into my "kids say the darndest" memory bank, not really getting he was figuring out human mortality.I'm going to fast forward through a lot, but basically over the last 11 months he has become really obsessed with death, piecing together his concept of mortality from a variety of sources, and over the past month it's started to manifest in tearful bouts of panic. Learning about relatives who died started it, I think. Then he slowly moved to fears that his baby sister might die and, finally, himself.At this point he will burst into tears daily about his fear of death. Our mornings always begin with a cheerful "good morning!" from me and a flat "mom, I don't want to die" in response. Sometimes he moves past stating his fears to sobbing about it, and this is not a kid who cried frequently before. His overwhelming fear of death affects every parent-child interaction we have; if I tell him to watch out for younger kids on the playground, he asks if I'm afraid they'll die; if I tell him to eat his dinner he asks if he will die if he doesn't. It's actually pretty awful! I hate that my freaking three year old seems to be legitimately depressed about death.I've tried so many "fixes" it would be impossible to list them all here, but as of right now I'm trying to acknowledge his fears only briefly. I also find myself saying stuff like, "don't worry about that" or distracting him with responses like "yeah. Do you want to go to the park?" We also have tried talking about death and he's probably also gotten a variety of platitudes from us, grandparents, etc - just the other day my husband responded that maybe by the time our son was grown science would have found a way to make us learn be forever, and I know grandparents have dropped the "heaven" bomb a few times.Anyway if anyone has any ideas please let me know. Thank you!!!! via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2w0OEAo