The Mother's Day Card
This is a chapter from the book I just finished "Time Flies When You're alive". Francesca is the main characters wife who has died of breast cancer. Jasper is their child.
Two years after Francesca had left us, I was seeing a woman who had become close to the kids. Jasper, then eight years old, had made her a Mother's Day card. A wonderful artist, he'd taken a little piece of pink paper, folded it in half, and had drawn heart shaped balloons with strings. In the middle of the rising balloon forms was a big heart that had broken into two equal halves. Each half reflected the facets of the break and in between was a little male figure floating in space. The figure's fingertips reached out toward each heart half. The card read, "Even though you're not my mom, I still love you. Happy Mother's Day."
I looked at him and said, "Jasper, honey, tell me. What is that male figure doing on the front of the card between those to heart halves like that?"
I was a forty-year-old man about to get a basic primer in love from an eight-year-old child. A lesson in letting go, in allowing new love to flow in; a lesson in acceptance and moving on, the bottom-line principal of forgiveness. I listened to his answer, amazed that my little boy could so simply understand such a complex issue.
He smiled and said, "Paul he's pulling his heart back together."
Two years after Francesca had left us, I was seeing a woman who had become close to the kids. Jasper, then eight years old, had made her a Mother's Day card. A wonderful artist, he'd taken a little piece of pink paper, folded it in half, and had drawn heart shaped balloons with strings. In the middle of the rising balloon forms was a big heart that had broken into two equal halves. Each half reflected the facets of the break and in between was a little male figure floating in space. The figure's fingertips reached out toward each heart half. The card read, "Even though you're not my mom, I still love you. Happy Mother's Day."
I looked at him and said, "Jasper, honey, tell me. What is that male figure doing on the front of the card between those to heart halves like that?"
I was a forty-year-old man about to get a basic primer in love from an eight-year-old child. A lesson in letting go, in allowing new love to flow in; a lesson in acceptance and moving on, the bottom-line principal of forgiveness. I listened to his answer, amazed that my little boy could so simply understand such a complex issue.
He smiled and said, "Paul he's pulling his heart back together."