Friday, April 17, 2009

A Tale of Two Monsters

Today is supposed to be Handmade Friday and it is in a way. The two softie monsters pictured here are indeed handmade--although not recently. I made Sprout around Christmas time--an amigurumi. And Rage is one of my early monsters from a couple of years ago. We were in the middle of an adoption when I made him--can you tell?

But today, instead of looking at what I've been making this week--granny squares and Joy Monsters and Mother Bear Project bears (almost finished with #3) I want to tell you the story of two monsters. In this story, monsters are good. Humans are bad.

Once upon a time there was a little monster, born in a far off kingdom. The monster's birth family could not raise her so they took her to Monster Care. Poor sweet monster. The care was positive humanous. She was hurt very badly. One day this little monster got on a flying tin can and came to a new kingdom. There she received lots of monsterous care. Alas, all the earlier hurt made her a little human at times.

As time went on, she came to love her monsterous home and new family but, the more she loved them, the more scared she was that they would leave her. And so she became even more human. Sometimes, she would spit and yell and rage and try to hurt herself or try to hurt her mother.

Her parents knew that they needed to get her some help so they took her to an attachment therapist. And they all learned to be less human and much more monsterous. Her parents learned ways to help her know they would always love her, no matter what. They would never leave her. Repeat 1000 times per day and mean it more every time: we will never leave you. We will always love you.

And, with the help of a very monsterous therapist who has a terrific skill with attachment monsters, the little monster became less and less human. She learned to trust and believe and hope and love and even grieve all that she had lost. Sometimes, she was a sad little monster. Don't think that's bad. A sad monster is much better than a raging monster. Who wouldn't grieve all that could have been? A monsterous home in her first kingdom, love at Monster Care....

Sometimes, she was still a bit human. She didn't know what to do when she got mad at her mother so...she thought of the meanest, most human thing she could think of and she called her a "peacock." Her mother kept telling her: I love you. I will always love you. Sometimes, Little Monster would say "I don't love you. You never loved me. I'll never love you." And Mummy would say, "I've always loved you. I will always love you." And each time Little Monster heard it she believed it a little more.

I cannot end this story with the beloved words "they all lived happily ever after" because the story is still being written. But, it's a good story and I think it will have a truly monsterous ending.

4 comments:

Chantelle said...

I have a tiny monsterous tear in my eye after reading that story. :`) thank you for sharing

Jeff Chapman said...

What's so bad about peacocks? Peacocks are nice birds. Okay, they strut around all self-important and peck at you with their sharp beaks but that's just being a peacock.

Hope your little monster becomes even more monstrous. Perhaps some scream therapy is in order.

Recovering Noah said...

Awwwww, that's awesome. I mean, the story and the way you've written it and how sweet it is ... not the fact that you have a monster who is a little bit human.

Okay, that looks weird when I reread it, but you know what I mean.

You should really, really, really write some sort of kid's book based around that AND sell it along with a softie. Not that I'm trying to convince you to capitalize on it, but, DANG!, you might be able to pay for some more monster therapy with it.

I, for one, would buy it in a heartbeat.

Seriously. Think about it.

No. Seriously. You should think about it.

Have I mentioned how serious I am?

I'm going to bug you about it. :-)

TracyC said...

Leslie--I think you're serious. :-D I'll think about it, 'kay? Thanks for the compliments.