Fairytales, happy endings, loss & childless living

Writing and thinking about meaningful songs made me think of a recent song, although it's not really related to loss or infertility (in an obvious way, anyway... I suppose you can interpret just about anything the way you want it to...!).

I don't really like rap or hiphop at all (showing my age here), & Fergie & the Black-Eyed Peas are really not my style. But I do find myself humming one of Fergie's recent songs these days -- "Big Girls Don't Cry" (not to be confused by the song of the same name by Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons, which is more within my frame of reference...!") It has a beautiful melody & a lovely, wistful quality to it, and there's a line in it that goes: "Fairy tales don't always have a happy ending, do they?"

Maybe not. My fairy tale/dream come true pregnancy with Katie certainly didn't have a happy ending. To say dh & I are living happily ever after our loss & infertility is stretching it. But I can't say that we're living UNhappily either -- not all the time. Maybe fairy tales sometimes just end differently than you'd expect -- without the conventional expected happy ending.

Have you ever read the children's book "The Paper Bag Princess" by Robert Munsch? It starts out very much like a traditional fairy tale, with Princess Elizabeth slated to marry her Prince Ronald. A fiery dragon destroys Elizabeth's castle, kidnaps Ronald, & burns her dress, forcing her to innovate and wear a paper bag. Elizabeth sets out to find the dragon & rescue Ronald -- who is less than appreciative when she finally finds him, and criticizes her dishevelled appearance. She tells him he's "a bum." The last line of the book is: "They didn't get married after all," and the final illustration shows Elizabeth skipping off happily ever after into the sunset by herself. Needless to say, the feminist in me absolutely loved this twist on the traditional fairy tale (I have given this book as a present to countless little girls).

Munsch is also the author of "Love You Forever" -- a book which adults apparently either love or hate (some find the image of a mother sneaking into her grown-up son's house at night to rock him a tad creepy). Personally, it never fails to bring me to tears. You see, what many people don't know is that Munsch wrote the book as a tribute to his two stillborn babies -- the Sam & Gilly the book is dedicated to. (I learned this in a wonderful segment about him on CBC Television's "Life & Times" series -- sort of a Canadian version of A&E's Biography.) The lullaby the mother sings in the book is one he made up for them, and he sings it when he tells the story on the program, and in live performances.

Dh & I saw him perform "Love You Forever" (and several of his other stories) at the annual Word on the Street literacy festival in Toronto several years ago (a few years after Katie was stillborn). The children in the audience were giggling. Dh & I were blowing our noses & wiping our eyes. I felt a little silly until I looked around & realized most of the adults in the audience were doing the same thing. Not sure whether their reasons were the same as ours, but it's obviously a story that strikes a chord.