My mother used to tell me the fable of the mother bear and its cub. The story is a simple one – a mother bear tells its child that it is time to sleep for the winter, but the little cub doesn’t understand the wisdom of its mother; it doesn’t feel sleep weigh heavy on its bones. It waits until its mother grows drowsy, then creeps from the safety of the den, out into the white winter world. It has never seen such glittering splendour; amazed, it romps and plays, laughs and burrows in fleecy frozen drifts.
But soon, the cub grows hungry, and it finds the branches are bare. Soon, the cub grows thirsty, and it finds the streams are frozen. Soon, the cub grows tired, and it finds the path back home is lost, obscured by freshly fallen snow. Afraid and alone, the cub tilts its head to the sky and wails a lonesome song.
This is the point where the story changes, to suit my mother’s mood. Have I stayed out too late, riding in the backseat of a friend of a friend, lipstick smeared and shirt askew when I arrive at my doorstep? Then the cub falls in with a wolfpack, thinking it has found protection from the threat; but instead the wolves are the threat, and when the cub leads them back to its den in the spring, the wolves eat both mother and child.
Have I come to her, tears in my eyes, because someone wrote slurs on my locker, and the rumours in the changeroom are the kind of things you laugh off, but never really lose the scars of? Then the wailing cub sees a shadow fall across it; panicked it tries to run, but it trips and catches its leg in a crevasse; looks up, terrified, to find… that the shadow is its mother, come to rescue her errant child.
Have I broken my leg playing chicken on the tracks by my best friend’s house, even though I’ve been warned that some day I’m going to break my neck? Then the cub spends the winter lost and alone, growing ever sicker, ever weaker; but when the snows finally melt, and the path back to the cave becomes clear, the cub is fed mashed berries by its mother, who shakes her head and says “Now you know why we hibernate.”
Some day, when I am a mother, I will tell the table of the mother bear and its cub. And when the cub is afraid and alone, head tilted in a lonesome wail, the mother will appear from the shadows. “I was here all along,” it will say, “just in case you faltered.” The cub will ask, “But why didn’t you stop me?” and the mother bear will reply, “Adventures and mistakes are part of life, my love. I’m not here to stop you from having them – only to make sure that they aren’t your last.”
Picture by: Emily Lampson. Emily is a Canadian illustrator and fine artist. Check our her work at EmilyLampson.com.