One of the most awkward things that I've seen is when a young girl, about 13 years old, started to ask her mother if she was going to die. This happened at breakfast one day before school. The mother seemed to not want to acknowledge what was happening and tried changing the subject by asking if she had finished her homework or something like that.
After about 30 seconds of this, the girl started crying. She was really scared and worried that she was going to die soon without her mother there to help her. This happened a couple of times, each time getting worse and worse for the girl. The mother seemed to have been trying to ignore what was happening.
The mother finally asked the girl what was wrong. The girl told her that she had a dream where someone came to take her away and it scared her because mommy wasn't there. The mother seemed to be a little embarrassed and realized that she just needed to spend more time with her daughter.
At that point, I realized what had happened and tried to think of the best way to talk about it without making the mother feel like she was being judged by me.