Here’s one of my blanks. You see, when Grant, my son, was a toddler, we saw the film “Dumbo” together. Remember the scene where little Dumbo goes to visit his mother, who has been put in jail for being a “mad elephant” for charging at some children who were making fun of her beloved child’s oversized ears? Dumbo, with his mouse friend’s help, sneaks out to visit his mother. When it comes time to leave, they entwine trunks through the bars in a loving but bittersweet embrace and then as Dumbo walks slowly away, their trunks wave sadly goodbye.
From that point on, Grant and I invented a goodnight ritual we called “elephant arm,” something that we looked forward to at every bedtime, teaching it to Grant’s father and when his sister was born, to Jody, as well. Like Dumbo and his imprisoned mother, we pretended our arms were elephant trunks, entwined them and then sadly waved goodbye as I turned off his light.
But there came a day many years later when the adult Grant, consumed with wrestling his artistic soul into a career path, suggested, in passing, that perhaps the whole ritual added layers of unnecessary drama—and a touch of tragedy—to his already refined sensibilities about life. Grant has been working it out, having found his way towards a career as a doctoral student in English—while writing songs and singing in his rock band. I’m sure he’s forgiven me for elephant arm, but wanting to have been perfect, I sometimes found myself wincing at the thought of ritualizing a film in which, as I remembered it, the mother elephant not only goes to jail, but dies. How, indeed, could I do that to my young children?
Not having seen the film in many years, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when the TV listings showed that they would be showing “Dumbo” the night of my birthday. Somehow, the timing felt more than accidental, so I watched the film, catapulting between delight and cringing, as the story unfolded. Then suddenly, I noticed something that I had long forgotten. At the very end of the film, Dumbo has become such a hero, learning to use his ears as wings, that mother—far from dying at the end of the movie—is actually released from prison and reinstituted with full honors! Happy rebirth to me and may all our regrets be so easily redeemed.
Carol Orsborn