Coping with the death* of a loved one.
(*In view of the different beliefs about death, this story only raises a very general idea about the survival of the soul after the
death of the physical body
and can be adapted in the way that suits best).
After crossing mountains, valleys, forests and villages, Little Celestial Fairy no longer knows which direction to fly. She's been looking for her wand for so long that she doesn't know where to go.
“Wow! They look like palaces! What beautiful buildings!” exclaims Celestial.
“Follow that river,” says Sparkly “and it will surely take you somewhere special.”
And heeding the little voice, Celestial decides to fly above the river and follow it as if it were a path.
After a while she arrives in a big city. Now the river is very wide and there are big buildings on both sides. Some look like palaces. They have many windows and are decorated with columns and statues. She can also see many parks with fountains and shrubs cut into figures.
The little fairy is so distracted looking left and right that she does not notice that she is approaching a large stone bridge that crosses the river.
“Watch out!” Sparkly calls out when it sees that she is about to get too close.
But when Celestial reacts, it is already too late. Before she has time to avoid crashing into the bridge, it is already so close that she can only put her hands in front of her to avoid bumping into it. Although she can't avoid the collision, at least she isn't hurt that much, but she loses her balance and falls headfirst towards the river.
Luckily, just at that moment a barge full of people is passing by and the little fairy ends up on the hat of a lady, who is very entertained taking pictures non-stop.
“Oops, I think a little bird has emptied its belly on my hat,” says the lady looking for a handkerchief in her pocket to clean it.
But before she puts her hand to her head, Celestial jumps onto a life belt hanging on the side of the boat and sits on it.
“Oh, I was a hair's breadth away from the lady to grab me and throw me into the river! I think I'll stay here for a while and rest, because between the crash and the fall my head is spinning and my whole body aches.”
As the barge pulls up alongside the riverbank, Celestial sees a group of people taking pictures, while they are following a woman carrying a red umbrella and swinging it up and down over her head.
“What is she doing with an umbrella?” she thinks. “It's not raining! And why are all these people following her around taking pictures?”
And since she doesn't know the city, she decides to follow them out of curiosity and sits on the backpack of a gentleman, who doesn't take his eyes away from a video camera and walks almost without looking where he's stepping.
After a few minutes the group turns a corner and suddenly, as if they had agreed, everyone exclaims at the same time:
”Ooooooooh!
“What can that be?” she thinks. “Maybe they use it to send signals into space.”
She jumps off the backpack and starts flying towards the tower. There are people taking pictures of it everywhere.
“Well, it can’t be an antennaCelestial, who from the backpack can only see what's behind her, turns her head over the shoulder of the man who has been her taxi. Then she sees it: a very tall tower made of iron pieces that stick to each other as if it were made of Meccano.
to send signals,” she thinks a little disappointed,“ but surely it is very important if everyone photographs it.”
Below the tower there are people queuing to go up in the elevator and there are others, more daring, who go up the very long staircase. She soars higher and higher until she reaches a terrace, where people look down from behind the railings and take pictures. She sits on top of a kind of blue telescope.
“Oh, what beautiful gardens!” she exclaims, looking at the park where the tower stands.
And sitting there she entertains herself for a while looking at everyone who walks by. She sees a young couple walking hand in hand and kissing, a man reading the newspaper sitting on a bench, a lady walking a white dog in a red sweater, two boys eating a pancake while listening to music on their phones…
Then she sees a family that catches her attention: the father and the son, a boy about seven or eight years old, are walking holding hands. They are walking without speaking, looking at the ground, and they look very sad, as if they were about to cry. Behind them is the mother, who is smiling and looks very happy. Then, the mother and father sit on a bench and the boy takes a ball out of a bag and bounces it towards the grass.
Celestial watches them for a long time.
“How strange” she says. “The father and mother haven't spoken once or even looked at each other... They must be angry. And instead of playing with the ball, the boy has sat on the grass and is constantly tugging at pieces of it... I'm going to see what’s going on with him.”
And jumping from the telescope, she flies down towards the boy and approaches him slowly so as not to scare him.
“Hello!” she says with a smile. “What has the grass done to you? Why are you doing that? It seems to me that the gardeners must already be in charge of cutting it when it's time...”
The boy doesn't even look at her and continues pulling at the grass.
“Have you seen my wand?” Celestial asks him to try to get the boy to talk to her.
When the child leaves the grass alone and raises his head.
“Are you a fairy?” he asks, looking at her wings.
“Well, I'm not sure,” Celestial answers him, “because I don't have a wand and if I don't find it I won't be able to go to the Fairies’ School, but everyone tells me that I am one.”
“Do you want to play ball with me?” the boy asks.
“Oh, this ball is too big for me,” she replies. “Why don't you play with your father?”
“My father no longer wants to play with me. Sometimes, when we're at home, he plays for a while but soon tells me he's tired or suddenly starts crying and locks himself in his room,” explains the boy.
“Ah,” says Celestial, “that's why you're angry and pulling up the grass? It didn't do anything to you.”
The boy lowers his head but says nothing. Suddenly Celestial realises that he is crying.
“Why are you crying? Did I say something that made you sad?” she asks him worriedly.
The boy shakes his head and wipes his tears before looking at Celestial. “I miss my mum” he says sobbing.
“Your mum?” asks Celestial looking towards the bench where his parents are sitting.
“Yes, she died almost a year ago. She became very ill and could not be cured.
“Ah, now I understand” Celestial thinks. “Neither the father nor the boy can see her the way I can!”
“Listen,” she explains to the boy, “now I'm going to tell you something that might seem very strange to you. Your mother is there, on the bench, sitting next to your father. She has been walking with the two of you the whole time and has been looking at you since she sat down.”
The boy looks towards the bench but sees only his father there.
“But what are you saying? I can't see her. And besides, why would you say she is sitting there if she's dead? She is gone and she is never coming back!” he says, bursting into tears again.
Then Sparkly says to Celestial:
“Tell him about the water and the clouds!”
The little fairy listens to the little voice and begins to explain to the boy:
“You can see me, can’t you? I'm a fairy. Well, there are many people who can't see me, because they think fairies don't exist. Most of the time only children and animals can see me, but just because other people can’t see me doesn't mean I don't exist, right?”
"When people die they don't cease to exist either. They just leave their body, sometimes because it’s old and worn out or because it’s ill and they can’t use it anymore, but in fact they continue to live in another form, as if they were invisible.”
"I'm sure you learned at school that when the water in the rivers and the sea is heated by the sun, it rises towards the sky and forms clouds.”
”While it's rising you can't see it because it's turned into vapour, but deep down it's still water, isn't it?”
“Yes,” interrupts the boy, “like one day I left a glass of water on the terrace and when I went to look for it after a few days it was empty!”
“Exactly!” says Celestial. “Well, people's bodies would be the glass, and their way of being, their thoughts and everything that makes them who they are, would be the water. Even if when they die all this is no longer inside their body and no longer visible, it continues to exist, like the vapour.”
The child, who has stopped crying, nods yes but he is listening with a face that is not completely convinced.
“I know it sounds strange,” says Celestial. You know what? We'll do something so you can see that I'm not deceiving you. Close your eyes and remember what your mother was like. Think about how you felt when she hugged you, when she played with you, when she told you stories... Can you feel how she loved you?”
A tear escapes from the boy's eye but he seems happy and starts to smile.
“You are doing very well!” says the little fairy, encouraging him. “Now feel the love you felt for your mother and also the love she felt for you. Can you?”
The boy nods his head with his eyes closed.
“Where would you say all this love has gone? Do you think it disappeared the day your mother died?”
The boy shakes his head no and says: “No, I can feel it as if she were right here.”
“Isn’t it true that you miss your mother because you loved her and knew that she loved you? Well, that hasn't changed at all; you still love her and she still loves you.”
But when the boy opens his eyes, the smile disappears from his face and he becomes sad again. “Yes, but I want to see her, and hug her, and I want her to play with me... I miss her anyway and I'm very sad because she's not here!”
“Yes, I know, but being sad is not a bad thing. If we were never sad we wouldn't notice the difference when we are happy, because everything would be the same. Besides, you're surely not sad all the time, are you? There must be many moments when you are having a good time and you don't even think about it... You will always miss her, but slowly you will learn to live without her and you will get used to having her around in a different way. At times you will be sad but at other times you will be happy, because you were very lucky to live with her for a while and because you will remember everything you did together.“
"And look, another thing... I'm sure you've been told that you look like your mum, maybe physically or in your way of being or in some of the things you do.”
“Yes, the people who knew her always tell me that I have her smile. And when I get angry, it always passes immediately, just like her. She really liked animals and we always watched nature programs together, because I like them a lot too. And besides, I draw very well and my mother spent her Sunday afternoons painting pictures. Oh! And she taught me how to make carrot cake and mine turns out just as good now as when she made it.”
“Wow, so many things! Well look, all these things were part of your mum and they are still alive in you. Every time you do them it's like she does them too. I know it's not the same as when you did them together, but if you remember her every time you do them, you'll always feel her close and maybe even that will make you smile... And look, even when you smile you'll be reliving a part of her.”
The boy seems to have understood what Celestial has explained to him and his lips begin to express the same smile that Celestial had seen on his mum when she was walking behind him.
“And now, why don't you go to the bench and tell your father everything? Adults sometimes have a harder time understanding some things, but surely if you teach him to do what you did, he will also realise that she is also by his side and still loves him.”
“My father is so sad that sometimes I think he forgets that I exist. We used to do a lot of things together, but since mum has gone, he doesn't want to do anything and doesn't even want to talk. He never talks about mum and I don't dare because I don't want him to get worse, but I'm sad too and now I only have him.”
“Yes, I understand you,” says Celestial. “Sometimes adults who lose their partner feel so sad that they are left without strength for anything. You probably remind him a lot of your mum and he gets sad when he sees you, but that doesn't mean he doesn't love you. You're also the only one he has, but maybe he doesn't know how to tell you what's going on with him. In addition, adults often think that boys and girls don't notice things or that things are different for them... Surely, if you talk to him about how you feel it will become easier for him, you'll see!”
The boy gets up and runs happily to the bench. While he is talking to his father, the mother gives Celestial a hug and thanks her. After a few minutes, the father and the child also hug each other and get up from the bench and go to the grass kicking the ball.
“I think they will be fine now,” Celestial thinks. “This is one of the most difficult things that humans have to live through, but I'm sure both of them will get something good out of it no matter how impossible it may seem to them now. At the moment they are having a great time with the ball!”
And seeing that they don't need her anymore, Celestial says goodbye to the boy with her hand and takes off flapping her little wings.
“Today I don't have much time left to look for the wand,” she thinks. “Maybe I should look for somewhere to spend the night. Tomorrow when I get up I'll start looking for it again.”
And you? Do you want to keep accompanying her?
One of the most painful things that can happen to us is the death of a loved one. Our life suddenly changes and we think we can no longer go on without them. We miss them so much that it seems like a part of us has also died and we no longer feel like doing anything but crying. We are used to seeing those people, talking and doing things with them and it seems to us that if we don’t have them near they have disappeared forever, but what makes us who we are is not only our body, which is made of flesh and bones. Their love, their way of being, the things we did together and the things they taught us have not died and we always have them with us.
When the child remembers his mum's love and the things he likes or did with her, he feels less sad for a few moments. Celestial tells him that every time he thinks about those things, he will feel her close.
There are many teachings that explain that life does not end when our body dies and that we continue to exist in a different way in a transparent body that we cannot see with the eyes we have now. After a while we are reborn in a new body and start another life, but inside we are the same as we were before we died. There are many people who do not believe this because they have never seen it, but there are also many who do, because these teachings have always existed and have been explained by very wise people. When you are older you can look for this knowledge in the books they left behind and compare the different ideas to be able to choose the one that makes the most sense to you.
Celestial can see the mother but the father and the child cannot see her, because her body is not flesh and bones. She explains to the child what happens to water when it evaporates, which becomes transparent but after a while turns back into water when it rains.
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