A friend had been out-of-town for the birthday celebration of a six-year-old granddaughter and was just heading home when this message popped in: “We just left. She was crying so hard she couldn’t get on the bus. Her mom is consoling her and then driving her to school when she settles down.”
I responded with understanding and shared that when our older grandson was 3 or 4 he had gone through this if he was not asleep when we left. I said I had taught him to feel us together in his heart.
The friend wrote back, “She’s working on feeling us (me) with her heart but not quite there yet.”
Later that morning, at a reunion luncheon, a colleague mentioned the The Invisible String, a series of books written by Patrice Karst and Joanne Lew-Vriethoff. The series is a tool for children coping with all kinds of separation anxiety, loss, and grief. Although both grandmothers had significant experience with grief work, The Invisible String series was new them and the discovery was divinely timed.
What wonderful ways Life works!
