On a recent weekend, I came home to my son Lorenzo, who’s almost six, sobbing. I had just taken my other son León for a walk while he napped, and the tears threw me. Lorenzo was shaking, standing next to Nacho, my partner, in the garden.
“Il riccio,” he told me. While I was away, Lorenzo had spotted a hedgehog in the garden shed. He was overjoyed. We live in the outskirts of Athens, where tortoises live in the wild, and we often get visits from hedgehogs, especially in summer when they come searching for water.
But as they got closer, they realised that the hedgehog was dead. He had gotten stuck in between some plastic pots, his head poking out of a hole, his body rigid.
They picked him up with Nacho, dug a hole, and buried him by the mandarin tree. That’s where I saw him sobbing.
They had placed a ceramic pot to mark the burial spot, and Lorenzo wanted to give the hedgehog offerings. He picked a lemon from the neighbours’ tree and placed it in the pot. He then went looking for small wild flowers in the lawn. I suggested we add some mint and basil from our plants. He placed a ball there too.
Still sobbing, Lorenzo went into the kitchen to pick some food from the fridge as an offering. I was so touched by how shaken he was by this critter’s death that I just wanted to hug him really tight.
There was a long day ahead of us. So I suggested that we could draw the hedgehog to remember him. And then he said: let’s write a book! His eyes lit up. He went into action mode, walked upstairs to pick some blank A4 pages, and sat at the kitchen table with all his pencils and markers, folding the papers in halves to create a sort of booklet.
Lorenzo had written a book before, with Anna, his babysitter. It was about Pokemon. He cannot write independently yet, but he likes to have words spelled out for him after he decides what sentence to write.
We had a conversation about how to depict the hedgehog. He wanted to see the picture of the dead animal and print it. I tried to explain that it would be nice to remember the hedgehog alive and found old pictures of the other hedgehogs who had visited us in the past. (“It is the same one!” he said.)
And then he went on to draw the altar he had created for the hedgehog, leaving out the image of death.
Before getting into the part about the hedgehog, the book has two pages showing lightning and a dark sky. It reads: “The night before, there was a thunderstorm.”
I was so proud of Lorenzo for transforming his pain into something creative, of how resourceful he is. And it made me think about how often we at home use storytelling and reading as tools to figure out issues at home. And it made me think again about the power of storytelling.
The power of stories — and your support
Telling stories can transform people — both those whose stories are told and those who are telling the stories — for better or for worse.
There are stories that we can tell in ways that make us feel better about ourselves and the world — at least this is what some of the research out there seems to suggest. (If you are interested in this subject, this episode of the Hidden Brain podcast is a good place to start.)
I believe that this newsletter is a wonderful space for me to transform some of my struggles with the world around us into something else. I often struggle with motivation. I often wonder what the point of these words is, given just how tragic the world is, especially for the youngest children out there living in war and crisis. But week after week, here we are. I have written over 230 newsletters over these past four years — and you readers and supporters have been there to support me through this process.
There are many things that I plan on changing in 2025 (including getting in touch again more regularly with the community and trying some meet-ups), but for now, I would love to thank you once again for being there for me — four years in!
With love and care,
Irene
📣 The First 1,000 Days is edited by community member and friend, Shaun Lavelle.
Photo credits and alt-text: Lina Kivaka on Pexels. An adult, likely a parent, is reading a children’s book to a young child. The page they are reading shows a humorous illustration of a red fox sitting on a bed with various clothing items scattered around, under the caption “Poor old Fox. Has lost his socks.” The adult’s hand is visible, pointing to the page, while the child, whose back is to the camera, is attentively looking at the book.
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