“Its wing is broken.”
“Its wing is broken.”
“Yes,” I nodded softly, “true.”
Sean kept silent, staring at the open book laid between us on the mat.
“Some wings are broken from the inside,” he said, raising his eyes to meet mine, “can something invisible be fixed?”.
The moment filled-in with Sean’s contemplation and my gentle smile. “Do you have an invisible broken wing?”
Sean nodded, his eyes holding tightly to mine. “Yes.”
My eyes, which hadn’t let go of his, not even for a fraction of a second, answered him what was yet to be answered through the next long months of our psychotherapy.
In our last session, following months of an initial working through Sean’s childhood trauma, I handed him my farewell gift. He opened the wrapping paper slowly, uncovering our book which we had worked on week after week. ‘How to Heal a Broken Wing - Sean’s Story’ was a laminated copy of the beautiful original pages. However, the original text was covered by white blank squares which made room for Sean’s story. In his own 10-year-old hesitant hand-writing, Sean found words for voicing the story of his invisible broken wing.
“Thank you,” he said, his eyes avoiding mine. “Thank you.” My warm hand bridged the short distance between us, and as he slid his palm into it, he gave himself to my hug.
In a city full of hurried people, only young Will notices the bird lying hurt on the ground. With the help of his sympathetic mother, he gently wraps the injured bird and takes it home. In classic Bob Graham style, the beauty is in the details: the careful ministrations with an eyedropper, the bedroom filled with animal memorabilia, the saving of the single feather as a good-luck charm for the bird's return to the sky. Wistful and uplifting, here is a tale of possibility -- and of the souls who never doubt its power.
“I have long wanted to write a story about a pigeon, a story that connects with the times we live in where we seem to be losing touch with the natural world.
I wanted to write a story of hope, putting empathy in the hands of a child – because children are our future and our hope for a more caring world to come. When all of the world’s horror and inhumanity appear daily on the televisions in our living rooms, I wanted to show a human counterbalance to these things enacted in ordinary, everyday and seemingly insignificant events.
In doing this, I tried to tell the story using a minimum of words and to let the pictures do the talking.
A very strange thing happened as I was drawing the final picture of the small boy jumping in the air to catch floating feathers. The telephone rang, and as I answered it I watched what appeared to be fine ash floating down outside my window. As I finished my conversation it dawned on me that it was not ash but very small downy feathers, floating down from a clear blue sky. I picked up six or so and stuck them in my notebook to remind myself I had not imagined it, before finishing the book soon after.
