Happiness

Here’s a little fable about happiness in dedication to an old friend.

Once upon a time there were two bears, called Big Chief and Curly. What wonderful bears they were - so full of life and adventure. It was right that two such wonderful bears should fall in love.

Their love kept them side by side, hand in hand for many years, sharing so many highs, travelling an exciting journey together. Then one day Curly had to stop travelling. She was heavy with a bear cub and needed to provide a safe home for it, a place for the future where she could teach it to become a strong, independent, decent young bear. Whilst she paused on her journey and shared her love between father and child, Big Chief continued his journey alone, travelling back here and there to admire his fine family. He began to relish travelling far more than he did standing still, since he met fresh faces every day, strange and thrilling people who swelled his head with compliments about what a truly wonderful bear he was.

Although Curly made a cosy home and filled it with love, eventually Big Chief began to see going home as a chore. Curly was different now, he mumbled. Life was boring, he complained, even though neither was true. It was only that in his mind, nothing could match his exciting world and all he craved was more excitement. As for Curly bear – well he forgot to show her how much he loved her. Then he forgot to love her and then he just wanted to forget. One day, when it all became too much, he slunk away, leaving Curly not only having to deal with her heartbreak, but also with everything that they had spent their lives building together. He waited for her to break. He held his breath in anticipation of her anger, but all that came was a gentle ‘why’? What could he say to explain his actions? How could he justify the unbearably huge decision that he had made. “I want to be happy” he said finally, trying to find the right words to sum up his emotions.

Curly held her despair at bay. She had to understand. She had to know what this meant. Where had such deep unhappiness come from and why on earth had he not let her know? She would not let go of her love for Big Chief until she got to the bottom of it. In an effort to feel the pulse of what other bears felt, she asked for their advice. Big Chief has simply lost his way, they advised. ‘He will come to his senses’, they said reassuringly. ‘He will be the biggest fool around if he lets you go’. They all seemed so certain that he would change his mind. ‘What is happiness anyway?’ they all said, ‘we certainly don’t know’. But that was not good enough for Curly. Not by a long way. She had been happy. Why had he not? They had been so strong - what could have made him so weak? Happiness was worth everything. Big Chief was right in that one respect and she wanted them both to be happy and she wanted them to find that feeling together. He had a right to happiness. After all, bears only had one life and it was important to lead it well. But did her happiness not count? How could he have forgotten about her happiness? How could the bear that had shared so much with her, more than most bears would ever experience, treat her so?

Meanwhile Big Chief went off and did lots of things to keep himself busy. He travelled, he laughed with some more friends, he travelled a bit more, he searched for people, places, events, jokes, silly things to make him laugh. Curly was hurt to see him smiling so much, but she could see that deep inside, he was still not happy, not by a long way.

In time Curly came to see that she was not the real cause of Big Chief’s unhappiness. It came from within him. He had shut himself off from feeling and experiencing love and happiness. He thought that there were more important things in life than these two simple and honest emotions. Sadly, his swollen head and swollen pride meant that having chosen a path in life without Curly, he could not turn back, he would not turn back. He felt that he was no longer capable of filling the void inside. He believed that people would judge him. He did not realise that side by side with Curly again and with the help of the very people who he thought would judge him, he could fill the void a thousand times over.

When he finally settled into life without Curly, he looked out of his window one day at the empty city outside and felt a feeling he had not felt before. Devastating loneliness. He felt emotionally spent. He ached for Curly and the cubs. Instead of telling them how he felt, he tried to carry on. He decided that he needed some colour in his life, so he planted a flower in his window box and watered it every day. It grew strong and bloomed and looked beautiful, filling him with joy as it flourished. However, his itchy travellers feet still itched and when he felt the pull of new people and new surroundings, he would go off for a while and leave the flower to fend for itself. Without his tenderness and his daily attention, the flower withered. Each time he returned he would water it guiltily and try to revive it. For a while it would struggle to recover. It would gather any strength it had left to show him its beauty. However, it grew a little weaker each time Big Chief went on a trip and then after a particularly long excursion, Big Chief returned and found his flower dead. The city looked cold and lifeless without its bright blooms to cheer him. He missed its floral scent. He missed the joy it brought to his cold life. As he stroked the flower’s dry stem, it crumbled in his hand. All the pieces blew away in the chill wind and Big Chief watched them swirl away from him. In that very second he realised that it was taking the last ashes of his happiness with it. The flower had taught him something so valuable, he wanted to shout it on the wind for everyone to hear. He had no love or happiness left in his life, because he had put none in. Only love begets love. With great sorrow he finally realised, now that it was too late, that you really and truly do reap what you sow.