What If You Were Just Crazy Enough To Do That?

Taking back what was stolen. Fairytales aren't just fairytales.

Jun 29, 2025

I have a longtime family friend. She’s more like an aunt to me. She’s my mother’s High School friend. Frankly, she’s family. But I’m just putting things in perspective for you. I don’t call her “Aunt” though that would make sense. For today, I’ll call her Dinah. Like Alice’s kitten.

I recently saw Dinah on a visiting trip to see my mother - I usually do. Dinah always brings gifts. Gifts from her storehouse of creativity. Colorful, inviting, sometimes this-n-that’s, sometimes lovely clothing or shoes she wore once but feel they would suit other feet better. Lucky for me we wear the same size.

We normally all go to a nice lunch to catch up. We did this time, too. But when we came back Dinah’s conversation took a surprisingly autobiographical turn that touched me deeply. And though I have spent the last three weeks unpacking boxes (hence the delay in publishing for you here), I cannot stop thinking about her story. And I cannot stop thinking about a magical world I’ve created for her in my mind.

We were all sitting around the living room, the four of us. (My mother, Dinah, my aunt and me.) Dinah and I sit on a day bed that’s been made over for a comfy couch with ample pillows. I sit at Dinah’s feet at she stretched her legs out barefoot. Family.

As most conversations that take a deeper turn go, I’m not sure how this one started. But suddenly the story of Dinah’s life, by Dinah, began.

I’d always known that her mother died at a young age, that she’d been raised by her father with half-siblings… that it was not easy. That is to say…it was very hard. Sort of family legend. But today was different, for now, for the first time, I was hearing Dinah’s perspective.

She spoke of living with her mother (without her father) from an early age; her father and mother divorcing before she was four. So from her formative years it was just she and her mom. She showed me a picture of her at four years old with her mother. She had a precious gap in her smile where she’d just lost a tooth, block bangs with hair hitting just beneath her cheeks. Her mother carried off the bouffant swimmingly. She was lovely. The child in the picture was happy.

All in a snapshot. How things were. How they were supposed to go.

But things did not go as supposed. Things took a dastardly turn. You see, her mother received a diagnosis of Leukemia and would not survive beyond Dinah’s thirteenth year.

That’s bad enough. That’s enough to end the story and feel the sorrow for that child but Dinah shared more, willingly answering my questions.

Her grandmother would not be able to care for her, so she would go to live with her father now, with a stepmother and half siblings. She did not have a relationship with them and her relationship with her father, to my understanding was not close. She was now the eldest in a family she did not know, that did not know her.

On the day of her mother’s funeral, at the age of thirteen, Dinah was denied attendance.

She was not allowed to go to her mother’s funeral.

She was not permitted entrance into the final ceremonial goodbye. From the one person who was her person… she was barred.

It was deemed that she was too young. It was too much.

For whom?

This kills me. It’s hard to go beyond that part of the story. It was hard to allow her to continue on the day I heard it. My heart was crushed for her; for that little girl who was thrown into a world where they barely acknowledged the depth of this new reality.

SIDEBAR

Because sometimes we need a drink of water after hearing of such sadness. We need to breathe - take it in -live with it, and be allowed a moment of compassion. A prayer. A tenderness with the Holy Spirit who can work miracles. Perhaps a moment to say “I know this is impossible but would you please bless that little girl and go back and change what happened? Will you kiss her goodnight and tell her that there’s someone in the future praying for her?” We need a moment to recover from the obvious abuse.

Also, I’ve been reading a book - an eye opening and suckerpunch of a book called Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. What a title. What a book. If you want to wake up and see some things as they are, (not necessarily in your own family but it’s helpful to know for several relationships), not as you wish they were… read it.

Dinah’s story is beyond that “Emotionally Immature” title, I think, but is assuredly applies. My first thought was that those adults could not handle the emotional depth, the reality of what was on their hands (blood?) so they removed it. “Dinah, stay home so we don’t have to see you cry.”

Abominable.

THE STORY WITHIN THE STORY

She did not “get along” with the wife of her Dad. It was strained I think at best. But there was a story within a story that was like another knife through my heart.

Dinah had boxes of her memories, of trinkets and treasures she’d packed away. I’ve already told you she likes pretty things. And she shares them. But these were her memories. The boxes in the attic. Her dance shoes, her “pretties”. The things from her childhood that she’d carefully protected and saved.

When she’d gone off to college she came back to find them no more.

Gone.

But they were found.

A half-sister had gone into those boxes and, well, the only way to tell the story is to tell it.

She stole. She invaded the sacred, the set-apart holy pieces of Dinah’s life and took them for her own.

How did Dinah find this out?

She visited home and found her past life all over her “sister’s” room. Dotted everywhere. This girl had simply taken the dolls, the ballet slippers, the what-nots, the precious bits - what was not hers - and made it so. All of Dinah’s childhood treasures. The treasures of the girl who wasn’t allowed to go to her mother’s funeral.

The violation. The theivery.

And no one said a word.

Including Dinah.

Of course this unrighteousness enraged me! I wanted to start making signs. What’s this chick’s number? I want justice now.

JUSTICE FOR DINAH!

The selfishness and desire for “more” seemed to be a running theme as she described her experiences. And that said, there seemed to be no real blame in the storytelling. Moreso, Dinah appeared resigned. What’s done is done. It was long ago. (I think to myself… “Hmmmm.”)

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My heart bangs for the injustice and the overt wrongdoing. Even if seemingly passive-agressive, it all shouts agression to me.

Hadn’t she lost enough? Hadn’t the worst been taken from her? Now that I write this it occurs to me that that might be why she was able to let go of the physical things. That - or sometimes you don’t have the energy to fight anymore. Not worth it because it won’t change that person.

Are people that clueless? That … evil?

She spoke of the past and present relationship. Akin to the phrase “it is what it is.” Dinah has friends. She has us. We are family. Not blood. But longevity. Commitment. Abiding love.

My heart still ached and my mind would not be stayed on this story as the story “staid” me. I keep thinking of the little girl who knew her mom was sick. The long blank spaces of time and gaps of information unknown. That perhaps even she didn’t know. What was she told?

She didn’t get to go to her own mother’s funeral. It kills me. Did it crush her spirit? A great sin against a child.

IF YOU COULD GO BACK? WHAT IF YOU WERE JUST CRAZY ENOUGH?

As the days passed and we moved back to the northeast, I continued to ponder her story. I entered a fairytale world. I imagined what it would be like if we lived in a world where we didn’t allow things like that to happen. In fact, that we lived in a world where if we found out such a thing today (as I did), that we didn’t, couldn’t, allow it to continue one day longer.

What if… we allowed Dinah to go to her mother’s funeral… today?

What if the artists, spiritual mothers and fathers, friends… those with hearts to handle such a journey could create a good, true and beautiful happening to take back what was stolen? Not to change the many blessings through the wounds that perhaps were used for God’s glory but to gift to her spirit a solid and real life restoration?

What if we lived in a world like that? I know it’s a wild and ludicrous imagining but…

What if a funeral home was reserved…. A closed casket… a picture of her mother… those in her life now that matter… that get it… those with true maturity of the spirit and compassion. What if she wore a dress that was approprate to her age now… but wore something of the past as well… to bring along that thirteen year old.

What if she was given the chance and experience to voice the things, or cry the tears, in front of those who care, that she never got to before?

What would she say? What door would shut? What door would open? Who else would be healed from the experience?

What if everyone walked to the grave site together? Is there one? What if one was finally created?

What if we lived in a world like that? Spent our time and artistic resources in a spiritual parenthood and friendhood.

What if we would just crazy enough for the kind of non-material generosity?

What if her friends now, rose one at time to speak about her mother? Even if they didn’t know her! What if they wrote little eulogy vignettes as to a thirteen year old that has her whole life ahead of her?

Dinah. I know this isn’t fair. There will be mysteries your whole life. And you might feel more alone now than you have ever felt, but you must know that you are not alone. We are here. We love you. We will never leave you. God loves you. And day by day, one day at time, He will speak to you of his love. And your beautiful mother, whom I see in your eyes, your heart, your smile, your talent, your gumption, your smarts… that is how she lives on. She lives on in your memories and in the beauty that was created through her the day your were born. You are loved. Love never dies, Dinah. Your mother is ever with you. We will be here to remind you every day.

What encouragement would this seventy-five year old woman hear that she never heard at thirteen?

How would it change our lives?

What if we were just crazy enough to do things for each other like that? You might think this is the stuff that movies are made of. Fairytales.

Maybe I’m entering a stage of life where I’m thinking more about the end than the beginning. That the bridges matter. That fairytales create far more than imaginative minds.

I think a little crazy like that might be necessary from this point on.

Am I just crazy enough? Are you?

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.” G.K. Chesterton

Are you just crazy enough? Let me know….

If you were motivated by this story and would like to support my work but aren’t ready to subscribe monthly you can always just buy me a cup of coffee for for my next writing session. It’s all helpful and encouraging.

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Current News Update:

My play, Home, has been accepted to the Missed The Boat Theatre Company New Works Play Festival. The full-length play will have a workshop staged reading this fall. Check out Fleur Alys Dobbins’ website to find out more about Home.