Wishing there was nothing in the world to make people sad, only wanting happiness.
Wishing there was nothing in the world to make people hurt and in pain.
Wishing there was something that would automatically weed the garden so she didn't have to do such a boring, hot and sweaty job herself.
Well, I don't know about the weeding aspect of her recent dreamings. But as for her other wishes, I had to point some things out to her.
I explained how she only knows what happiness feels like because she's felt so sad at times. And she knows how great it is to be free of pain, injury and suffering because she's had a few accidental incidences of being injured and in pain.
I just finished reading a novel that smatters it's pages with various Yiddish folklore and cultural beliefs. The book ends with the story of a child yet to be born. In the Yiddish culture, it is believed that unborn babies live in paradise and are taught all about everything - history, culture, art, their families, everything. They eat art, drink books, and bathe in emotions. Then, just before they're born, they are smacked on the nose and sent to their parents - without any memory of the paradise they came from nor what they learned. It it within your life on earth that you regain what you can of your previous knowledge and truly come to appreciate the beauty and abundance the physical world has to offer.
I loved this story. Particularly the part where the unborn child was spending his days bathing in Love. He, and the other unborns, loved their Love Baths and never wished to leave them. Then the guardian of the unborn child - a family member who had lived his physical life and was now aiding future family members before their births - made him bathe in the other waters. The sulfurous baths of Envy and Hate, the cold baths of Loneliness and the smothering waters of Depression, to name just a few. Then, after all that, the unborn was taken back to the bath of Love. Oh, how much more lovely this felt now, after knowing how the others felt by contrast! What a better appreciation of love!
I read this story just today. It was a week or two ago - well, it's been "wishes" here and there for awhile now - where I suggested to Sweetie that she only knew the one emotion because she had felt their opposites. Imagine! Everyone walking around happy all the time! But would they really be happy? How would they know they're happy if they didn't have sadness and pain as a contrast? You can't appreciate how great it is to feel so good if you haven't been on the other end of the spectrum, now can you?
So, I'm sorry, Sweetie, that sometimes we take you away from things that make you so happy. I'm sorry that accidents occur and you fall down and scrape your knee or cut your hand. I'm so sorry that sometimes you just feel so sick and that a teeny tiny little bug has done its worst to you, making you now feel yucky and causing you to be on lots of medicine for a long time. I really think it's awful that nightmares creep into your dreams every once in awhile, waking you from your sleep and making it difficult for you to go back to bed and scared as you lie there wishing for the bad memories to leave you alone. I'm sorry that people we love have to die, have to leave this world as we know it. Yes, we will miss them. It's true, it will certainly be sad that we can't have new experiences with them, no more memories in the making.
But oh how glad am I that you know such great joy, peace and happiness in this world! You know what it feels like to be truly, deliciously happy. You have no doubt at all about the love Daddy and I - all your family and friends! - feel for you, and you love us with such big, deep love right back. You see such goodness in people. You look out for the lonely, the different, and you take them under your wing. You create and play and try and try again - even though you know there's a risk you may fall. I love that you see our lost loved ones in the butterflies that flutter by and you can readily recognize that they are, truly, never gone from us as long as we remember them. Lost loved ones are still here, you say - just in a different way. I love your positive outlook on life and the strength you have, personally, to get through all the harder, yuckier times. You know they are temporary. You know life is much more happy than sad, more pain-free than full of suffering. And, most of all, you know exactly who you are and will not let anyone tell you how to play, how to feel, or what to think. You are plenty capable of making up your own mind and not worrying about what others think of that.
You are, for the most part, so so happy.
And I'm sorry - (but I'm not) - that you recognize just how happy, loved and great you are because you have also felt the other side.
It's a hard truth in this world. But it's a wonderful truth - don't you think? I for one hope to learn more from you, Sweetie. Appreciate the good, the love, the happy - for we know all too well that the sad, the suffering, the pain can creep in at any time.
And weeds. Lots and lots of weeds.
Without clouds, the rain can't wash the land.
ReplyDeleteWithout rain, the grass can't hide the sand.
Without grass the flowers' bloom won't grow.
Without pain, the joy in life won't show.
Amy, this was a song I used to sing in church. I will find the lyrics for you. It has stuck in my head all these years and pops up when experiencing tough times and good times as well. Maybe Sweetie will like it.
Blessings,
Christina