Life Stories and Beyond

Letter to my Children about Happy and Unhappy Endings

By Lisa Kunkleman

How do we know if it’s an unhappy ending? Is anything really an ending or just a step toward something else? I remember talking to a wise man about how much I was going to miss having a baby around the house, once our first child grew out of all that cuteness and we’d no longer walk around the colorful paraphernalia that filled every room. How would we feel about her independence and clearing the path for her to walk away from us?”

That very wise man told me that for every thing you lose from that baby stage, you get something even more special with each new stage. As a child grows in size and independence, she also grows in ability to communicate and there’s nothing quite like enjoying the changes in communication through the years.

He said, “Just wait till she’s nine. That’s such a fun age. And what conversations you will have. For all the happiness you think is ending, you’ll receive new happy beginnings.”

Now I understand that what seems like endings are just the long continuum of life and the joys, sorrows, and surprises it brings.The transition is so smooth that you hardly know when you’ve seen the last this or that as you pick up a new other.  I’m not sure I believe in happy or unhappy endings unless it’s in a book or movie where there’s no sequel. Even then, if enough people ask for it, sometimes there’s another chapter to that story; there’s always more to come.

You may think you didn’t get the happy ending you wanted; you may rationalize that this is the way it was meant to be. I’d say, this might not be the end of the story. I’m waiting for the sequel.