"Where would he live now?”
My breath was caught in surprise as I struggled not to disrupt the fragile moment. It was one of those moments which you strive towards, yet, when it unexpectedly arrives, you are completely unprepared.
“Who?”
“Gus.״ Anna spoke quietly, as if whispering to herself. I had not heard her voice before. For the past three months, she came every week, entered the room in silence heading straight to the bookshelf and handed me over ‘Ida, Always’. From my place on the soft rug, leaning against the beanbag, as I read Ida and Gus’ story, all I could see was Anna’s back. She was entirely absorbed in her drawings, page after page, not allowing any contact. In the next long months, those drawings will become a ‘road-map’ through which Anna and I will walk together in the uncharted territory of her agonised loss of both her parents five months ago.
Anna’s aunt and uncle, who took her in, had brought her to me out of their utter helplessness. She attended school every day, yet had withdrawn into an unapproachable shell as she ceased speaking. I would read ‘Ida, Always’ week after week until it was no longer about the words; it became a lullaby.
She turned around facing me. “Does he need to move out of the Zoo?”
My heart went out to her, as this simple question unfolded the abrupt loss of the world she knew for the past eight years; her entire life. I was overwhelmed by the moment’s unfamiliarity - she spoke; she was facing me. And she was in pain.
Ida and Gus accompanied us for months. Months of weaving together heartbreaking moments and the rediscovery of how to smile. And similarly to Gus’ heart, which kept beating in spite of Ida’s departure, forcing Gus to stay alive, Anna’s heart kept beating too.
A beautiful, honest portrait of loss and deep friendship told through the story of two iconic polar bears.
Polar bears Ida and Gus spend their days playing together in their zoo. One day, Ida doesn't come out of her cave. The keeper explains to Gus that Ida is sick and isn't going to get better - soon, her body will stop working and she'll die. Gus reacts with an outburst, growling, "Don't go, don't go, DON'T!" But then he calms and focuses on his friend. Gus stays close to Ida, who has good days and bad. Sometimes the two are able to laugh, sometimes they're angry and scared, and sometimes they each need time alone. Gus is with her when she dies. Afterwards, he sometimes forgets Ida is gone. But when he hears the sounds of the city, he remembers Ida describing them as the city's heartbeat, and he feels Ida is with him - always.
In an honest and upfront manner, Caron Levis gracefully reflects the complicated emotions of not only dealing with loss afterwards but living with the dying. This frank yet sensitive work explores loss and affirms the power of friendship. While the tone is gentle, Levis is honest about the turmoil and anguish of terminal illness. In this soothing narrative, Ida will always be with Gus, because, as Ida told him, "You don't have to see it to feel it." The polar bears are sweetly and expressively drawn, and the sky, clouds, shadows, sunshine and rain in Australian illustrator Charles Santoso's softly luminous digital paintings all beautifully mirror the story's joy and sadness.
It was a funeral for a bug.
I was working in a kindergarten class, and one day, during recess, a group of children arranged large blocks and boards into a row of benches and placed a Dixie cup on top of a box upfront. Sitting with exaggerated slowness, the kids tried hard to keep chins lowered as they discussed what to do next.
One child, having recently attended a real funeral, explained, "And now some of us will say some nice memories about the bug and some of us can cry. If we want." Eulogies were offered, "It was a good bug...sorry you had to die, bug." There was some silence, giggles, mock tears, fidgeting. They buried the bug in a patch of dirt, then skipped off to play games like Pirate Ship, Trapeze, and Restaurant. The creative, curious ways kids approach matters of life and death, loss and love has often struck me, but the urge to write a book about it came after kids, teachers, and parents had asked me if I was planning to - because, see, someone's dad/grandma/friend/dog/neighbour...has died.
I found the story when a friend sent me an article about Gus & Ida. The story found it's pulse when I recalled a bereaved five-year-old once telling me, "...I think it's good that we have hearts, and the hearts beat, so we can remember the people we miss."
Whether kids have experienced loss directly, or just noticed it around them, they wonder. They imagine, make guesses, and look to trusted adults to help them make sense of it; to let them know it's okay to feel and to talk about it. It's a myth that we protect kids by not talking to them about loss; the opposite is true, it's just tough to do.
