Other Voices: May 2009
May 4th, 2009 by J.B. Shelton
A.A. Milne created Christopher Robin Milne, twice. In real life, as his father and in literary life, as the author of Winnie-the-Pooh. Milne wrote about a little boy named Christopher Robin, who shared childhood adventures with Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger, Owl, Rabbit, Kanga and Roo.
Our parents read these adventures to us when we were children, until we could read them for ourselves. We shared Pooh’s stories with our own children, who share them with our grandchildren. Today we are remembering the real-life Christopher Robin, who passed away last month. He shared his literary life with the characters who are here to comfort us when our own loved one disappears.
The friends of Christopher — Pooh and you among them — are invited to gather in the Hundred Acre Woods. To console one another. To share memories. To say a peaceful goodbye.
Shhh…The memorial service is beginning. Open your book.
“Nobody knew why Christopher Robin was going away,” the story began. But they knew, “Things were going to be different. They spoke with each other in such a hopeless sort of way that it really didn’t seem any good waiting for the answer.”
Piglet said, “I think that I have just remembered something I forgot to do yesterday and shan’t be able to do tomorrow.”
Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. “Pooh?” he whispered. “Yes, Piglet?”
“Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s paw. “I just wanted to be sure of you.”
“But, Eeyore,” said Pooh in distress, “what can we — I mean, how shall we — do you think if we…?”
“Yes,” said Eeyore, “One of those would be just the thing. Thank you, Pooh.”
“And how are you?” said Pooh. Eeyore shook his head from side to side.
“Not very how,” he said. “I don’t seem to have felt at all how for a long time.”
Piglet remembered he “wasn’t afraid if he had Christopher Robin with him.”
Pooh recollected that “as soon as he saw (Christopher Robin’s) Big Boots, an Adventure was going to happen and he brushed the honey off his nose with the back of his paw and spruced himself up as well as he could, so as to look Ready for Anything.”
Owl, who was wise in many ways, respected Christopher Robin, “who was the only one in the forest who could spell . . . he was one of those Clever Readers who can read things and who told us what messages meant.”
“Oh! Piglet,” said Pooh excitedly, “we had gone on an Expotition, all of us . . . to discover something.”
“Something fierce?” Piglet had asked anxiously. “But if Christoper Robin was coming I didn’t mind anything.”
Eeyore, to himself, in a quiet momêt, wrote a poem, titled POEM: “Christopher Robin is going. At least I think he is…Do we care? We do. Very much. And all his friends send Our love.”
“Pooh,” as Christopher Robin had requested during their last conversation, “promise you won’t forget about me, ever. Not even when I’m a hundred.”
Pooh thought for a little. “How old shall I be then?”
“Ninety-nine.” Pooh nodded, “I promise.”
Pooh has asked me to tell you that if you forget the service is for Christopher Robin and think it might be for someone you love, it’s all right to cry. He understands. He sends you his love. And he has a box of tissues ready to share.
J.B. Shelton is a freelance journalist based in Raleigh, North Carolina. She writes about children and grownups reinventing themselves at freelancesuccess.com/jbshelton