Fractured Fairy Tales

            Grief and fairy tales aren’t obvious dinner companions.

 

            When we’re grieving, we would dearly love for someone to ride in on a great white horse and rescue us. This seldom happens in real life. What we get instead is a coyote who appears on the trail, says, “Walk this way,” and heads deeper into the dark forest where we learn things we wouldn’t have understood otherwise.

 

            There is no “happy ever after” with grief because the only thing we want is for our loved ones to be back, and we know this isn’t going to happen. While our life down the road can still end up being pretty good, and there will be days with goo-gobs of joy, in the beginning, every memory of our loved one will come with a side order of grief.

 

            There are several reasons why we cling to Hollywood’s versions of fairy tales like Robin Hood and The Princess Bride:

 

            1. We liked them when we were children because they said that life was good, almost everyone was well-intentioned, and goodness would ultimately prevail. Fairy tales were comforting, like our warm, fuzzy memories of childhood that leave out all the unpleasantness. We liked their message that no matter what troubles come our way, if we worked hard and helped others, then we would get what we wanted. We didn’t understand then that the death of someone we loved meant forever.

 

            2. We love the idea of noble quests, especially when normal people confront their fears, gather up their courage to battle great odds, and succeed. They give us hope for dealing with the struggles that seem overwhelming in our lives, even if this hope is grounded more in wishful thinking than reality. Also, the stories have adventures that get our blood racing, tense, dramatic moments when all our plans could fall apart, the good and bad people are clearly identified, and they have that damn happy ending. You may be thinking of the great movie sagas like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter as illustrations of this, but remember that not all of the characters we cared about survived.

 

            3. We believe that if we follow the rules, then everything will work out and we’ll be happy. In “Little Red Riding Hood,” Red was to obey her mother and stay on the path because of the dangers of the forest. She didn’t, and got into trouble. Yes, life would be less stressful if everyone followed the rules, but it would also be less interesting because the path only goes where others have already been, and it would stifle individual creativity, curiosity, and growth.

 

            4. We want to believe that the universe is good, that people are good, and when something bad happens, it’s a mistake and a surge of good will come and restore the proper balance. We want to think that everyone wants to be kind to other people. Yet there is evil, cancer, drunk drivers, and too many people who prey on the innocent and trusting.

 

            The real fairy tales, the authentic ones, tell a far different story. They react to the harshness of life and the darkness that flows through people and the world. They are complex, often unresolved, and deal with the real horrors of famine, plague, and war. There is murder, suffering, blood, and there is death.

 

            People who are grieving experience the indifference to suffering that lives in the world every day. Besides the dark world of death, we also discover that some friends abandon us when we need them most, and that society ignores us after a month. While we may hope that someone will magically appear and set things right, we know this probably isn’t going to happen. No woodcutter, superhero, girl with a wand, fairy godmother, or knight of the Round Table is going to appear. There is seldom a Disney ending in real life. 

 

After the death of a loved one, we need to take our wishful thinking and do something with it. After we acknowledge that we are broken, then we have to gather up our courage and head into the Dark Forest of Formidable Grief where we confront our fears.

 

            As we make our way through the Massively Tangled and Thorny Thickets, we run across someone who listens to our grief and makes us feel accepted. Further on we find someone who is so compassionate that we feel our hearts lift, and someone else who is brave like Frodo, who was in way over his head yet wouldn’t let himself give up. Someone else is incredibly wise, and we write her words on our palm to guide us on the path ahead. 

 

            We meet more people who understand compassion, and then the unexpected happens. The magic of community begins as we share what we have and help each other make it through today. As we journey along, we stop worrying about how slowly we’re moving over the Steep Mountain of Immense Despair because each day the light on the horizon gets a little brighter.

 

Later on we find someone with antlers on his head and bells around his ankles who weeps while dancing, and we realize that even after we have crossed the River of Inarticulate Sorrow and entered the Land of Unwanted New Beginnings, we will always remember those we loved and our long journey through grief, because now they are part of our story, the story that begins, “Once upon a time ….”