Hangin On By A Thread

Pryce came to me the other day in tears. Her favorite pheasant was about to die. He was literally “hanging by a thread”. Poor creature! I looked at the alligator tears on my daughter’s face and and smiling, I shared that I would do what I could to help her.
“Grab the scissors I told her.”
“No!” she shrieked.
“Trust me,” said I.
She nearly fainted when I snipped the braided rope away from the base of the neck and head of the stuffed dog toy. “I know it looks bad,” I told her “but in the end, your toy will be EVEN better.” She still didn’t trust me, that was easy to see, but what choice did she have? Her beloved dog toy and come to the end of its “rope” and was done dealing within its current state.
I took this as a lesson and shared that we often get to this place in our lives where we feel we are “hanging on by a thread”. Sometimes there’s little else that we can do, especially when we know the end (of the current phase) has been completed. We can lament the end, feel the sadness fully and then we have a choice: stay there in our misery or…..move on. If we choose the later, we’ll find that the end is also a new beginning. Things can look and feel different here and usually, they are better than before. I’m not saying we will be without sadness and scars, it’s just that we are gifted with the conscious choice of moving forward.
This is a challenging concept for a kid but I think she got it. I took her and the headless pheasant downstairs. Together, the three of us walked into the craft room where I pulled out my Grandma’s supply of thread and needles.
“You could pretend that you brought your pheasant to the Vet,” I said.
“No thanks,” she replied. “Do you know how to sew Mom?”
“Just watch Pryce.”
She did watch, she made sure that I was doing what appeared to be correct form from her 6 year old observation. Slowly and precisely the head of the pheasant was “tacked” on. She wanted reassurance that his head wouldn’t pop off, so I took a few extra stitches.
“Good as new,” I said. “Wait….. I think this version is EVEN BETTER.”
She took the new and improved pheasant in her arms and smiled up at me.
“Thanks Mom,” she said as she cradled her pheasant.

I thought I’d share this for anyone who feels like they’ve gotten to the “end of their rope” and are “hanging by a thread”. The advice I offer is to cut the thread and start over. The end is also a beginning. Sometimes we’re afraid to move forward because we don’t want to experience something worse. I think instead we may keep ourselves from experiencing something EVEN BETTER.

If we’ve done the best we can, with what we have, in the time we have, then that’s always enough. If your thread is frazzled and there’s nothing left to do but relax and let go……chances are there is something very new and improved already waiting for you.