“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Maya Angelou
Like many things in life, how they manifest matters as much as that they manifest. This is never truer than when parents ask me how they should talk to their children about their decision to divorce, and in particular about one parent’s choice to move from their family home.
It seems to me that art’s evocative emotional power could be harnessed to help describe and depict a family’s journeys and separations. What if after an initial explanation to their children, parents could share art with them and then use the images as tangible reminders of the transitions and changes taking place. Perhaps the art could be a means for continuing difficult conversations regarding leavings and reunions, and the images could have an enduring impact on how children feel.
There are times when art jumps out at me, seeming like the perfect bridge for one feeling or another. A recent visit to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts was one of those instances, as the current exhibit of A.A. Milne’s artwork for Winnie-The-Pooh lends itself especially well to young children, but also to children of all ages.
Talking of taking leave…. we take those we love with us
And we recognize that Forests and Families will always be there so long as Bears and People realize that although Good-byes do mean changes, they don’t need to mean endings.
While in Beaune, France last year at just about this time I went on a fabulous tour of wine caves which ended in a gallery with the outstanding exhibit of British sculptor Paul Day’s plaster cast of the bronze Meeting Place (modeled on the sculptor and his wife). For teenagers and young adults grappling with their own ideas of intimacy and separation, this sculpture asks us to consider whether this is a reunion or a separation, and the image could lead to a discussion about how separating does not need to erase a love that begat their family.
But what of this bronze? Does it convey people leaving room for future interactions or instead suggest a rift without possibility for future collaboration? Could this image be used by a family to explore what to avoid rather than what to extol?
We hope our road of life is long. It is clearly sometimes comprised of unanticipated twists and turns but so long as the sun still shines, we have the power to craft and re-craft our journey and that of our family. 
