In the fairy tale, daddy bear meets mummy bear and they fall in love. They are young and successful and feel that together they have the strength of a thousand bears, daring to take on the world. They have adventures together, scout opportunities, succumb to the lure of money and success. Some time later bear cubs follow. They cannot resist the yearning to share this honey-filled abundance with more bears. Their love spills over and creates new life.
The bear cubs arrive with their own deep dreams and desires. They want to follow them with outstretched arms and grubby fingers. But suddenly the daddy and mummy bears are tired and scared. Adventures become trials, money becomes an elusive master, and success becomes their foe. For how will they protect the little bears running around with targets on their heads. “Don’t climb too high, don’t run too fast, stay where I can see you!” Their days and nights are filled with the terror of losing the fizzing sparks of life that they have created.
The bear cubs are confused. They have just arrived in this shining new world, full of things to touch, and smell, and drink in. They want to plunge their hands and faces deep into the fabric of the world around them and bring it close, for they haven’t forgotten that the same pulse runs through their souls. But slowly, unnervingly, the world withdraws into fractions and grammar, manners and clean clothes. Raw desires wither and fade into a gnawing itchy ache that settles somewhere in the pit of their stomachs. It's an ache they’ll ignore until they grow older and fall in love. Then the spark of hope ignites once more and the fairy tale begins all over again.
Meanwhile, an old bear sits in a rocking chair, softly swaying while he tells stories of climbing trees, splashing in rivers, and uncensored laughter with his friends. He doesn’t talk of the hours clocked at this desk, the rise to promotion, or the stocks and bonds in his name. He feels his life condensing into a tunnel that will soon take him home to his soul, and his wrinkled skin longs for the sunshine of youth to shine full on his face once again.
As he closes his eyes for the last time and the final whisper of life leaves his body, the cloak of his regret slips from his shoulders. Unveiled, he suddenly sees how he desperately wanted the fairy tale to be truth. How the world outside had hastily pushed the chapters together in a clumsy jumble. At poignant points of his life he sees how he could have chosen to take up the pen and make corrections, adjustments, twists in the tale. Their story or his. Their pain or his innocence. Their rules or his dreams. But the effort to swim against the tide was too strong. With each cresting wave of convention crashing over his head, he struggled to breathe. Couldn’t stand the hammering in his chest. Lost faith and belief that he could do this alone, and clung once again to the raft of stories he’d been told.
Now he sees that he was never alone. The story began the moment he stepped into a body and into the arms of his naive, hopeful parents. Unseen hands were always there to wipe away the tears, kiss the grazed knee, and lay a hand on his shoulder as he took a deep breath and crossed the threshold into adventure.
Next time around he thinks he’ll try again. Meet someone new, fall in love, and teach the little bears how to open their hearts to the world and let life in. And maybe, just maybe, he’ll remember to make time to leap high into the air, lifted by the giggles of his children, as they try to catch the fairies floating by on the wind.