The further one delves into realms of spiritual enquiry, the clearer it becomes that attachment lies at the heart of many problems. Our journey of attachment starts in childhood as we get used to people, pets, and material objects that surround us and make our world feel secure. As we emerge into adulthood these bonds gain in complexity. The loss of a treasured object can lead to paroxysms of grief, be the object of affection a possession, like an item of precious jewellery, or money, a job, a house, a partner or a parent.
Yet life has been priming us to accept loss from the day we were born, when we left the safety of the womb and headed, startled and screaming, into bright lights of this existence. Milk teeth were left under pillows, toys got passed on to other children, family pets passed away. The hardest loss to face, however, is that of a close family member. The apparent finality of death brutally stamps its mark, bruising hearts and leading to emotional chaos.
Preparing children to face the inevitable can be a difficult prospect for parents and carers. Finding myself in such a situation recently, I thought a poem might work as a suitable means of addressing this complex issue to a young, impressionable mind. I wrote this, and thought you might like to share it.
You can’t hold on to ice-cream on a hot summer’s day
For the simple fact that ice-cream isn’t made that way;
It looks great when it’s fresh and crowning a cone,
But give it ten minutes and its work here is done.
No matter how much you want it to linger,
You can’t stop it coursing down knuckles and fingers,
Trickling its sweet way down to the floor
In drips and in drops until it is no more.
You can’t hold on to that shiny red sequinned dress
That you paraded proudly through pre-school and infants.
You had to let it go no matter how hard you cried
When it split at the seams as you tried to climb inside.
You can’t hold on to goldfish, hamsters or rats,
You can play with them and love them until time takes care of that;
Then you rest them in the garden, maybe plant an apple tree
And in the years to come remember how they used to be.
You can’t hold on to handlebars without help to stabilise,
Then you find your balance, lose your fear, discover you can ride,
But the bike you learn to ride on isn’t much use when you grow
So it’s time to buy a new one and the old one has to go.
You can’t hold on to school days, you might long for them to end.
You can’t hold on to classmates or to all your childhood friends.
You can’t hold on to youth, you’ve got to leave it far behind
And hope in years ahead the ageing process will be kind.
You can’t hold on to your first kiss or fragile butterflies
That flutter in your tummy when you look into his eyes
And you can’t hold on to your first love if that connection frays –
You’ve got to let it go because the lovebird can’t be caged.
You can’t hold on to jealousy, to hate, to rage to anger,
It will eat you from inside like the malignant spores of cancer;
You can’t hold on to happiness, to joy, to love, to hope –
They will slither from your grasp because they’re slippery as soap.
You can’t hold on to Nan and Granddad, or to Mum and Dad.
There’ll come a time when we’ll have used up all the gifts we had
Given us at birth and our tired hearts will beat no more;
Our bodies become useless as the mind slips out the door.
You can’t hold on to anything in life so embrace change,
And treasure every moment, because nothing stays the same.