The Lies We Should Believe

[Editor’s note: Parents don’t always tell their children the truth. At least not the whole truth. They have the best of intentions – to protect them from harm, from life’s crueler moments; to help them understand that wishes don’t always come true. But here’s one story of how a parent’s lie to a child helped her see a seemingly tragic situation with a bit of optimism.]

The Lies We Should Believe

by Sara Esther Crispe

Have you ever tried to convince your kids to believe something, even though you don’t believe it yourself?

Do you ever think you are being realistic, when you are really being pessimistic?

Do you struggle with whether or not it is OK to lie, if the lie will make others feel better, even temporarily?

As a parent, I wonder about these things all the time. And recently, our family experienced an incident that made me rethink my thinking patterns and the need for them to change.

One evening last summer, we heard crying. We went outside and a cat immediately came up to our daughter and snuggled against her legs. We weren’t sure how he had found us as we live in rural Vermont, on 10 acres of farmland and forest where the distance between neighbors can range up to a mile if not more. But somehow he found us, we fed him and he never left. Being that at first he both was and wasn’t our cat, we appropriately named him “Schröedinger.” During the summer he wasn’t allowed in the house, so of course, we got him a box. When winter came, he moved into our front hallway. Fast forward to this year in late spring, almost a year from when he first arrived and he was now king of the house.

When our cat (pictured above) found us, he had been living in the wild; we never worried before about him being outside. He loved the outdoors and to prowl. He would be gone for hours, returning when he was hungry or wanting attention. From what we knew, he had never been hurt by another animal. Though we did worry about the poor chipmunks and squirrels that he would hunt.

But one night, his hunting expeditions ended in a shriek like no sound we had ever heard before. Our entire family went outside onto our porch, facing an area filled with trees. We wanted to know what was happening. There was clearly a struggle happening, but it was pitch black and there was no way we could find him. We heard pained wailing and pouncing. Even if we could have seen him, there was no way we could risk our lives and get too close. We assumed it was a fisher cat or maybe a bobcat. Out in rural Vermont, there were a number of possibilities. None which fared well for our beloved cat.

When it became pretty clear that our cat was the victim of this horrific attack, I had my older girls take in our youngest back inside. Staying outside with my husband and son, we tried screaming Schroedinger’s name, hoping that whatever was attacking him would be scared off by our voices. But every time his cry sounded closer and we hoped he could escape and get back to the house, it was followed by the sound of dragging into the bush, as if this attacker was torturing its prey .The terrible pouncing noises were followed by horrific squeals as we stood there helpless on the porch, envisioning what was happening.

Then something large jumped. We could see its form but couldn’t make out what it was. While it was unlikely that the predator would come close to the house, we simply couldn’t risk it. We ran back inside, as we heard a few more high-pitched shrieks.

And then it went silent.

We returned to the house to our youngest one crying hysterically. Even from inside the house she could hear some of the screams and couldn’t bear the thought of our cat being mauled. She wanted us to go back outside but it was simply too dangerous without knowing what kind of animal our cat was fighting with. There was nothing that could be done.

She would not calm down. So, debating with myself it if was the right thing to do or not…I lied. I told her that I was sure he had run away. That he was hiding and that he would be coming back later that night when the threat disappeared. I assured her that it probably wasn’t even our cat who was making those sounds in the first place. Or if it was, he was likely attacking and winning that fight and if we wanted to feel sorry for an animal, we should think about the poor creature that he was destroying.

At first she argued every point I made. She insisted that the cries sounded just like him. (Of course they did.) She worried that with the collar and bell we put around his neck that he could never get away from another animal without being heard. (True. It’s hard to be stealthy with jingling bells.) She kept repeating that he always comes right back home when he is scared. (Which he does. He doesn’t hide.) So if he is not home he must be hurt. (Chances were, she was right.)

But I continued to lie. With all my might and my parental authority. I repeated my arguments. I explained that there was no point in assuming the worst when we had absolutely no proof that he was even involved in this fight. And in truth, we didn’t. We assumed, but we certainly didn’t know for sure. I quoted a famous concept that if you think good, it will be good (“tracht gut vet zein gut,” a Yiddish phrase coined by the Tzemach Tzedek, the 3rd Lubavitcher Rebbe), and that her positive thoughts would create the very reality she wanted and hoped for. As I tried to convince her to stay positive and that he would be coming back home any moment, all I could think about was what we would be finding the next morning in the bushes. As I hugged her and told her he was fine, I wondered how we would bury him and how she would handle it.

My other children stayed remarkably calm. Not because they thought the cat was fine but because they couldn’t bear the idea of their youngest sibling, age 11, facing the truth. The longer it was postponed, the better, they figured. They even joked that he was truly living up to his name. Was he dead or alive? Or both? This was a cat that had survived the odds simply by having found us from the wild. For sure he could handle whatever was going on they reassured her.

I was torn. I didn’t know if giving her false hope was uplifting or cruel. I didn’t know if I should be preparing her for the worst or telling her to pray for the best. And the hardest part was that I, myself, didn’t believe what I wanted her to believe.

After half an hour of hugging and cuddling, she looked at me and said, “You’re right. I’m sure he is fine. He is strong and fast and probably will be back in a bit.” I stared right back at her as I smiled and said “Absolutely!” and tried my best to hide the burning tears as I thought about our cat dying alone in the bushes in excruciating pain.

We tried to continue normally with our evening. We had dinner and before long our youngest was laughing, fully confident from the optimism I had pumped into her. I envied her. Why couldn’t I believe my very own words, that thinking good thoughts will bring good things? If I truly believed that thoughts are the foundation of–and even more so–create reality…why was I so quick to be pessimistic? I vacillated: telling myself I was being realistic rather than pessimistic, while feeling that I had betrayed my hopeful daughter by not sharing her hope that I had falsely given her.

Throughout the night she asked me to open the door and see if he was there, waiting to come in.  I opened the door, called out his name, waited a moment and then closed it, telling her that he probably just decided to sleep in the barn for the night.

And then, about three hours after those first horrific shrieks, on my half hourly door opening routine, I opened the door and our cat waltzed right through it. Before I told the kids, I first checked that all of him was there. I dreaded that perhaps a huge chunk would be missing from his side. But he seemed perfectly fine. I checked for blood, nothing. Missing fur? None that I could see. From what I could tell, he was completely unhurt.

The kids squealed in delight, hugging him and holding him. With the exception of a few new ticks he brought back with him, he was his regular self. Almost. He did seem a bit on edge and kept staring out the window. But he most certainly was not the victim of whatever we had heard and seen outside.

I was shocked. Completely and unbelievably amazed that our cat had either survived or escaped whatever went down. My other kids admitted once he returned that they too had assumed the worst when it became silent. But even they would not allow themselves to mourn until there was confirmation. There was no reason to be sad any longer than necessary – while they believed he probably had been killed, they still held onto hope.

And my youngest? She wasn’t surprised in the least. After all, I had told her that things would be fine, that he wasn’t hurt and that he would come back. I had convinced her to stay positive. So she believed me. And she believed. And Schroedinger’s return was therefore not miraculous to her, but expected.

We told the kids not to go out in the morning until we had surveyed the scene to  find out what had happened. There was no evidence whatsoever of the brutal attack. No blood. No fur. No broken branches. Nothing. If we hadn’t all heard it, I would have wondered if the whole thing wasn’t imagined. We had no idea what terrible thing had happened. The only thing we knew for sure what that our cat was alive, unharmed and back with us.

I walked back inside, wondering how many times I create the very reality that I fear, rather than the one I want; how often I assume the bad rather than determining the good. How many opportunities have I missed because I have been unable to even recognize they were there waiting?

Our cat is now a (forced) indoor cat. Whatever happened out there was a wake-up call that our rural area is not one where he can run freely. And with every meow of annoyance at his confinement, he reminds me of what I never should have forgotten. As long as there is room for hope, we must hope. As long as there is the possibility of a positive outcome, we must not focus on a negative one. And from now, if I am going to take the time to actually open the door, I better believe that exactly what I am waiting for may just walk right through it.

Looking at my youngest daughter, filled with conviction that her optimism, faith and prayers created the exact outcome she had hoped for, she helped me realize how I need to believe the narrative I create and create the narrative I want to believe. There are so many unknowns in our lives. And there is absolutely no reason for me to focus on a negative outcome when a positive one is just as possible, if not even more likely. The lesson learned was not that telling my child a lie helped her through a difficult experience. But that it was not a lie in the first place. The only lie was that I refused to believe that it could have been the truth.

Sara Esther Crispe, a writer, inspirational speaker and mother of four, is the Co-Director of Interinclusion.org, a social mosaic which perpetuates the arts, sciences, literature, and music through Jewish tradition. She was also the creator and editor of TheJewishWoman.org and has worked as a producer for shows relating to Judaism on the Oprah Winfrey Network and HARPO Productions. She lives with her family in Danby, Vermont where they run Jewish experiential retreats.