Happy Stories

I have received letters from adults indignant about my novel, A Very Little Princess (the first of two stories about a tiny china doll), because, again, it is so sad . . . and for, presumably, a younger audience than On My Honor.

But I wonder, though we all cherish happy endings, especially it seems adults cherish happy endings in stories intended for children, are happy endings the only or even always the best kind? While pleasure on the page or in our days is greatly to be desired, I suspect it's the pain in our lives—and our stories — that makes us strong.

This morning I found myself thinking about a beloved foster child who was once part of our family. Michelle was two when she arrived. She had been deeply neglected in her first family and then passed from one family to another in the foster care system. She arrived with no comprehensible speech beyond "Mama," and any woman who picked her up was "Mama"; fearful of everything, baths, the outdoors, the least separation, and she left six months later, a happy, chattering, beginning-to-be-independent child, to become part of the "forever family" I'd been telling her stories about for the last month. A happy ending for all.

And yet, as my seven-year-old son and five-year-old daughter and I stood in the driveway watching that "forever family" drive away with "our" Michelle, Peter, whose persistent teasing Michelle would remember for a long time, leaned against me and said, "This is the saddest day of my life."

Did I damage my children with this experience of loss? I don't think so. I think we were all made larger, more human by the gifts Michelle brought to us, and one of those gifts was the pain of losing her. She went off to a life we could no longer share, and yet she remained part of us. And my children grew into adults with a strong impulse to reach out to care for those around them.

I think it is so with stories. Little Dog, Lost is a happy story. It ends with nearly every problem sweetly resolved. Yet it journeys through abandonment, yearning that seems as though it will never be filled, and profound loneliness to reach its happy ending.

On My Honor and The Very Little Princess both end with a moment such as my children and I shared in the driveway that spring day . . . deep sadness and a distant glimmer of hope. But that is life, too. It is the experience of all of our lives. It is the kind of experience through which we grow.

If our stories haven't the courage to touch our sadness as well as our joy, what possible use can they be?