Ding dong, the doorbell rings.

Grandma-Litha opens the door and there are Sam, Dani, and Andy.

—Hello, Litha, thank you for taking care of the children. I'll be back around 6 for them —says Sam.

—Gladly, Sam. I'm sure we're going to have a good time. They just brought me blocks.

Dani hears the word “blocks” and runs in to play with them.

—Hello, Litha —says Andy while hugging her legs—. Shall I tell you what happened to me this week? We went on a hike to the forest and it was beautiful and horrible…

—Tell me everything, Andy… —says Litha while the two of them walk towards the living room with the blocks, where Dani had already started building.

—I put on the red boots because in the forest there are puddles and I don't like my feet to get wet. But the boots aren't that comfortable, so I had to walk slowly and everyone was running. But that's okay, because there I can stay looking at the flowers and the trees. I saw one of those red mushrooms that we don't touch because they can harm us, so I didn't touch it, I just saw it up close without touching…

Litha was following the conversation making eye contact with Andy and reflecting the emotion in her story: the surprise and happiness of the experience.

Andy continues non-stop:

—There were some high-up games, but I didn't want to go up because I'm scared, so I stayed down, and Ana Sue and Luis Prado didn't go up either, and we went to the puddle area. And that's where the horrible part came…

She paused, stopped building with the blocks, clenched her fists and put them near her face.

Litha also stops building and turns her body towards Andy.

—What happened? —she says in a dramatic tone, putting all her loving presence into the moment.

—There was a plastic bag in one of the puddles and I jumped on it.

She pauses and her face changes. Litha reflects the same feeling on her face and breathes deeply, giving space for Andy to finish her story.

—There was a frog and I could feel when I stepped on it.

—Oh, Andy, do you want to cry? Do you want to shake off the feeling? —asks Litha.

Andy starts stomping forcefully against the floor while rubbing her hands against her head. Litha starts using her hands as if they were a broom, sweeping the feeling out of her legs and arms, and Andy starts doing the same energetically.

At one point, the two of them are looking at each other.

—What a dreadful feeling, right? —acknowledges Litha.

—Yes… the frog was inside the bag, I think it got stuck and died… I'm never going to jump on things again, in case there's a dead animal —says Andy.

—Oh, my love, you'd like to be careful not to have that unexpected feeling again, right?

—Yes.

—I wonder if by saying “I'm never going to jump on things again” you might be losing the fun of jumping in puddles, or of jumping on rocks to cross a river, or simply of exploring.

Andy pauses to think, reconsidering it.

—How does it sound to you if, instead of saying “I'm never going to jump on things again,” we change it to something like: “from now on, if I happen to have an unexpected feeling, I'm going to shake it off and stomp and move,” just like we did?

—But, what happens if you're not there?

—I might not be physically present, but you can always remember this moment, do it yourself or do it with someone else. And there's also the option of calling us or even sometimes crying also shakes off the feeling from within. What do you think?

—Yes, we can try it “from now on, if I happen to have an unexpected feeling, I'm going to shake it off, just like with Litha” —responds Andy smiling 

—This is your profile 3 of trying, experimenting, trying things, avoiding things forever doesn't work for your happiness. How do you feel now?

Andy throws herself to give Litha a hug, letting herself fall, and says:

—Tiredly… I think I'm going to lie down on the couch for a while.

Andy lies down on the couch smiling, knowing that no matter where she is, if there's an unexpected feeling —with food, with clothes, with what she steps on— she can do what she did with Grandma-Litha. And just the thought of the company relaxes her body and she starts to fall asleep.

Pancy approaches, she also knows about unexpected feelings. Andy caresses her, they cuddle up and fall asleep while Litha and Dani continue building with the blocks until Sam arrives for them.

Rewriting our childhood stories generates in us the internal space to sustain current situations from empathy and care. Grandma-Litha is the loving presence in whose company we find the complicity to be our most authentic version.

Do you dare to rewrite your story from the gaze and the luminous presence of Abue-Litha?