As I prepare to send some photo cards to family afar, I am called to truly review and look upon the captured faces of the next generations. They are a reminder how I will live on in the memories of these people. These young, smiling faces who all contain my DNA. As my father and mother live on in me, so do they live on through me in these children and grandchildren. I prepare the letters and drop a note to remind others of this fact. A reminder that there is always a happily ever after, and we are the evidence. By simply living, remembering, and carrying on life everlasting, we are the happily ever after in the flesh.
Sending these cards with photos representing my DNA causes me to further ponder how I can be spread over so much geography. It gives the lyrics, “all of me, just take all of me ..” a whole new meaning. What is “all of me” in this context? Who is “all of me”? When bits of me are spread all over, how could we ever control the happily ever after?
In our small thinking minds, we believe we have a grasp on who and what we are, when nothing can be further from the truth. Everyday, I surprise myself with a new discovery and a changing thought as to who I really am and what it means to live happily ever after. This pondering harks me, like a herald angel, back to the fact that I have more happily ever after behind me than in front of me. I have more years to look upon, and wonder. Have I already lived enough happily ever after to make it come true? As I spread myself thin with family, friends, and life, is that happily ever after? The curtain has come down on my stage more than once, ending parts and pieces of this happily ever after, some well done and some not.
I remember watching the 1950s version of Cinderella where she sings so beautifully to the tiny creatures, the trees and nature. While her life is not yet the vision of happily ever after culture says she should have, her happiness is evident. Walt Disney wanted to bring joy and happiness to the world. His DNA is now seen throughout the land and it all started with his vision of happily ever after. I have grown up with Cinderella's story carved into my heart. There have been times when, in anger, I have pushed back against that version of the story. I have never witnessed the Cinderella happily ever after story, or have I?
At this stage of life, my dreams take different shape. Watching my family grow older at both ends, some leading me and those coming behind me, happily ever after has taken on a new role. In 1979, when I married my childhood sweetheart, I thought my happily ever after had come true. To this day, 42 years later, while we are still in touch, our lives went separate paths to find new and different stories. Making our lives no less meaningful, simply different journeys. While I could pine for the 1982 separation and subsequent divorce from my happily ever after what good would it do? I would not have the current happily ever after had the first one worked out to be. Things would be so different than they are.
What is a story that can boast happily ever after? What makes it be? As we lie on our deathbed, how would we measure? When we watch the cheesy holiday movies, or tear up at any moment we feel true love is revealed, is that what happily ever after feels like? Is it nothing more than a sense of rightness in the moment? That overwhelming feeling that all is perfect in the world.
Happily ever after is not a stretch of time, it is the blink of an eye. The moment’s whisper of perfection when all is right in the world. Even after this moment, I will have this happily feeling.
As we think of happily ever after, can we reframe it to be a momentary sigh of the spirit? A rightfulness that opens doors, or a portal, to the next steps on the journey. Happily ever after represents both the ending and beginning to any story. It is when we forget to begin again, welcome the next challenges and cherish the memories that we get in trouble. When we wallow in the happily ever after we imagine versus the happily ever after we are given, we drown. When we live in the past dreams of unreachable perception, believing life should have no pain, no darkness, and no sorrow, we weep.
To live happily ever after must be a choice. The happily part is to embrace a belief that each day suffering is part of the plan, a piece of the happiness. To go with the flow of the river, taking it all in stride is to find ever after. To live happily ever after is to know each moment, hour, day, month, year is ever after. Ever after must come post living. Ever after is the wake of a boat that we watch fade into the distance while the propeller makes new. To live happily ever after, each choice in your life is to choose wisely and with accountability for one’s actions. Each decision and subsequent fallout of that decision is the happily ever after. To live happily ever after is an awareness of the whole and the taking on of a life together with your heart, mind, and soul, for better or worse, in rich and poor times.
Happily ever after is yours, your time here, with the loved ones in your life. As with my ancestors, I carry their DNA. Their happily ever after depends on me living my life fully and without regret. It is about partnering with yourself to build your own story with a great ending, so when the credits roll they will say, “ .. and they lived each day happily ever after, the end!”
Have fun with the story of Rindercella and the Pransome Hince Some of you may remember this story. It totally turns happily ever after upside down!
Cynthia Breadner is a grief specialist and bereavement counsellor, a soul care worker and offers specialized care in Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy with special attention as a cognitive behavioral therapy practitioner and trauma incident resolution facilitator. She volunteers at hospice, works as a LTC chaplain and is a death doula, assisting with end-of-life care for client and family. She is the mother part of the #DanCynAdventures duo and practices fitness, health and wellness. She is available remotely by safe and secure video connections, if you have any questions contact her today!
