Here’s a story for children all about loss, that shows how to navigate these intense life circumstances while keeping our hearts open.
We are all destined to lose everything that we love. For some of us this will happen all in one sudden moment, at death. For others, the dying process will be so prolonged that many of the things we most loved in life will fall away one by one.
But some of the hardest losses hit us in the prime of life, typically when a loved one dies or disappears from our life. Now we need to cope with loss in a different way.
Being present to the intense emotions that arise at these times is the key to keeping our hearts open. It’s when we shut down, pull back from the intensity of the grief, wall it (and ourselves) away in some hidden place, that we live our lives as if hobbled. The grieving process has not been allowed to run it’s course, and our hearts will be constricted until this happens.
In the story, two close friends are separated by circumstances. The loss is unbearable for our protagonist, Anna. She’s unable to cope, literally walling herself off in her bedroom, unable to communicate with her mother. It’s only when her mother takes her to an older woman who has faced grief with an open heart that Anna finds a way to stay open to life, and the love relationships that will inevitably flow in and out of it.
Staying open to love is an art. It requires that we recognise that we have no choice about what happens to those we love. We ultimately can’t even control our small children, let alone our older ones! But we can choose what happens to our hearts.
Love is internal, not external. It is not located in the body of our lover, the wellbeing of our children, the warmth of our friends and family, but it finds a reflection there. In these love relationships we can experience the deep satisfaction of the love in us flowing out into form, blessing and caressing those we most love. That’s wonderful, and while it lasts we can feed that experience with gratitude.
But when it stops, we need to find ways to grieve. The old lady in the story gives Anna a little bush, and tells her to plant it in the garden of her new house. Every time she feels the loss of her friend, Bella, she should go out to the bush and speak to it as if Bella were there.
Anna finds herself going often to her “Bella bush” and letting the words flow, and the tears fall. In time the bush has grown large, and its sweet fragrance has become a calming presence for her. She still misses her friend, but peace has replaced sorrow. And then, just when she’s ready to leave home and go to university, she gets a call from Bella…
You can find the story here: Anna and Bella.
