"Let Her Go": For a World Full of Strong Women

Terence Stone


The beautiful song, "Let Her Go", by Jan Garrett has been a favourite of mine for many years. It speaks to me of letting go with difficulty of my own daughter as she became a woman of great strength and independence. She is now making a difference in the world. But no matter the circumstnces in which we find ourselves forced to "let go", I hope the music and lyrics of this song are inspirational and comforting.




"Let Her Go" music and video just for you (click "show more" on video information box to see lyrics with song)


She's just as pretty as a picture, glowing thru the years
Light and shadow, all woven together
She sends you her love forever, and a song to bless your soul
Singing in her bright spirit, you can feel it, hear it
Let her go.....let her dance.....Let her run through the willows in the wind
Let her sing.....and take her chances
Let her fancy free her soul
Let her go.....let her fly.....Let her throw back her head with laughter
Let her by, don't try to follow after.....Let her go
She was the sun and the moon in the garden of your heart
The lifeline you could always come home to
And now it's her turn to venture into new worlds of her own
So let your whole life caress her, let heaven bless her
Let her go.....let her dance.....Let her run through the willows in the wind
Let her sing.....and take her chances
Let her fancy free her soul
Let her go.....let her fly.....Let her throw back her head with laughter
Let her by, don't try to follow after.....Let her go
Caught in a body of circumstance, this day is too small for her soul
She'll slip out into the silence of a starry night,Barefoot all the way home
Let her go, let her fly.........say goodbye..........Let her go

In Memory of Swastika and My Mother

Terence Stone

Sometimes I feel compelled to write something at a particular time. The last few days haven’t been so great. I began my last entry, “The Butterfly and the Babushka”, with the sentence, "Between a single birthday and the death to which it acts as guarantor, there is usually lots of room for experience". That was a referrence--unconscious I know--to a one year anniversary of things that have me struggling a little emotionally right now.

You see, last year on December 7, some of you will know that Nancy and I were in a terrorist bombing in Varanasi as we attended evening prayers to the Ganges. We were just 30 metres in front of the blast, but the major force of it was probably a few feet above our heads. We were luck, but it killed a little girl instantly just two days before her second birthday. I won’t talk about the other victims, not because they’re not important, but because we can all appreciate the horror of a child’s death in any form. As you all read this, I’d like you all to whisper or speak the child’s name to give verbal shape to her life and death—“Swastika Sharma”. Two women friends of ours from Victoria were playing with her just before the blast—“Swastika Sharma”, the whisper goes.

My mother’s birthday was November 30. She died on December 15 after the bombing; so in a way we’re right between the anniversary of her birthday and her death: “Between a single birthday and the death to which it acts as guarantor, there is usually lots of room for experience”—the death of Swastika.

Patterns shape the unconscious in very strange ways. The “Butterfly and the Babushka” is a true story; and so is the life and death of my mother. As December 15 approaches, I feel her presence layered on me—she the babushka in death to me as I continue living. Yes. There is sadness; but I feel joy in her enfolding presence.

I guess I want to say that she wasn’t the perfection of motherhood; but every nesting self that still remains a part of me—scarred in living--she always provided some touch-up paintwork on me as best she could. Sometimes her hand wasn’t so steady or her eye clear to see my needs; but it doesn’t matter so much. She loved me the best she knew how and the life she lived is enough to educate me for the rest of my days. Above all she talked of the need for love and justice in her later years. I know she felt a pasion for this she could never fully express.

I’d like the memories of my mom to be a celebration of motherhood as it’s lived in love--imperfectly. It should be the same for fathers, too. Unfortunately, we have a language of the singular when it comes to primary caregiver. I never hear in my work, the plural—primary caregivers. It’s as if there is an inherited cultural norm of speaking this way that creates a poverty of parenting experiences for many children and their fathers. I honestly believe bonding and attachment can be quite balanced in a parenting-child relationship where there is a dad. Of course, this isn’t always the case and when it isn’t mom can capably provide the attachment an infant needs to grow up in confidence and security.

This time of year is a time of darkness in what is an age of darkness. But there is hope that comes with intent and action. Tonight is a full moon—the "Poya" moon we loved to celebrate so much in Buddhist Sri Lanka. And we look towards festivals of light: Hanukkah on December 20; Solstice on December 22; Christmas on December 25. I hope we can support the nurturing growth of a new generation of children to lead us out of the darkness beginning now. It’s their future really—and the future of our children’s children. I think we can best help them by carefully re-thinking meaning and holding a new kind of space for them where there is justice for all. This in memory of my mother and Swastika Sharma.

The Butterfly and the Babushka

Terence Stone

Between a single birthday and the death to which it acts as guarantor, there is usually lots of room for experience. My life is long enough that it holds like the visible babushka doll many fully nested experiences—those memories or dreams that the body holds as if they were designed to fit and be carried forever for some purpose. And I’ve often wondered about those thing—their purpose. Now I believe it’s some common wisdom that’s meant to be shared. You know—a bit like the old village storyteller who was burned at the stake or dismissed so that people could create myths for nothing but profit.

I think most of the old story tellers were women—wise and bold. They probably all had eyes as clear as diamonds and soft as mist--grandmothers. That’s what babushka means, you know. I think I’m a bit of a grandmother; so let’s not allow gender to get in the way here—this is storytelling.

It’s a curious thing. If I let go of what others might expect me to say or remember, I can easily feel the things that naturally nest in me. Even as I write, I remember two or three summers ago sitting on a bus by myself looking through the window on a sunny day as we passed a beautiful garden with an expanse of lawn. A magnolia close to the house was flowering with those distinctive, large pale-pink cloudy blooms that could as easily float up as fall down. A girl sat on a branch in a pink, flouncy dress the colour of a magnolia blossom. The magnolia dropped two blooms and she followed. It was moon-gravity under that tree because--I swear--all three fell in elegant slow motion. I remember letting out a little gasp, unsure that she would hit the ground and hurt herself, or be lifted and carried off by a sudden breeze. I saw her laugh as she tumbled amongst a  profusion of other fallen magnolia blossoms and then I relaxed. Just one of those experiences that nest in me. Perhaps it’s waking experiences that have a dream quality to them that are most easily held in this way.





If you’re reading this, then you’ve had the experience I speak of when you see a baby or a child you think you’d just love to hold; even a complete stranger to you. It happened to me once with a little girl I knew. One day I just had that urge to hold her in my arms as her mom cradled her. Unfortunately, I felt a little ill—sniffles or scratchy throat. You know what I mean. You just say to yourself, “Not this time; I’ll see her again”.

Well, the next time I saw her was in a dream. I didn’t know who it was at first. It was just a bundled blanket off the edge of an outside skating rink where children and adults glided happily around the ice on a bright winter’s day. I was curious about the bundle and as I drew closer I could see an infants face. There was something ominous that filled me like a warning babushka just inside my skin. As I leaned over her, I could see the tiniest smear of blood at the edge of one nostril. A kindly woman, her caregiver—not her mother—appeared, smiling a greeting. I told her something was wrong with the child.

“No”, she said. “She’s just fine”.

Unheeding her assurances, without hesitation I swept her up in my arms and headed off along a snow path that traversed the lower part of the hill on which the rink was cut.

All I could think was that I needed to get her to a hospital. The snow was pure and fluffy all around me, reflecting a crystal light. As the path led me to the lower corner of a house in front of which I would pass, I looked uphill to my left and saw five pieces of snow break softly from the smooth snow of the hillside. Each gently tumbled and gathered more snow as they tumbled to intercept my path. Four of them stopped short, but one continued and came to a stop on the path right in front of me. I still held the child safely and gently in my arms, but could go no further until I had picked up the fluffy snowball in both hands.

No sooner had I lifted it than it began to move from inside. Snow broke away as if it were soft shell from a hatching egg. First there was a flash of scarlet, then blue, followed by yellow. The brilliance of rich, primary colours emerged from the purest white of the snow and took the form of a huge butterfly unfolding its wings from a cocoon. In a state of wonder I held still my hands as the butterfly faced me. I brought it toward my face. The butterfly extended its proboscis and made contact with my lower lip—hard, unlike the softness of the dream. It wanted me to know that I had been kissed; and then it flew off in a riot of colour. I looked down in my arms to see that the child had disappeared.

I awoke suddenly and bit my lower lip where the butterfly had kissed me. My lip still held the feeling and I knew on awakening that I had been holding that same child I had chosen not to hold because of my sniffles.

Well, I moved away and never did get the opportunity to hold that little girl. About one and a half years later I was following up on some old contacts and discovered that the little girl had died six months earlier. There’s something about the babushka in me that held that child in my dream and witnessed something profoundly magical. She flew off, transformed and left me with a kiss. Grandmother that I am, I’ll always carry a part of some essence of her nested inside of me.