The Disney community is grieving this week. I know I’m not alone in feeling it. From the loss of some of our very favorite performers (I’m looking at you, Yehaa Bob) to the thousands upon thousands of brilliant cast members who won’t be returning to bringing us the magic anytime soon, we are all in a start of disbelief. This can’t happen to Disney… it’s our happy place. Those cast members, Imagineers, and talented performers are the heartbeat behind what makes it magical, and the loss feels unreal. Unfathomable.
We feel this even more so on top of all that we’ve had to lose this year. Careers, sports teams, concerts, weddings, family reunions, Disney vacations, freedom, and life as we know it. Many of us have also lost loved ones, amplifying the unreal state of 2020 to a place of numb apathy.
But here’s a small touch of pixie dust for you in the midst of all of this… Disney has given us the gift of how to walk through this grieving process. Not only that, over the years we’ve moved through it again and again with Disney, giving us unknown practice and tools we can draw from in the days when the world feels upside down.
I hate to admit this, but I’m pretty sure you’ll join me in admitting that our society doesn’t grieve well.
Other cultures have rituals and traditions that encourage periods of bereavement, public mourning, and extended emotional/physical support when faced with loss. We are somewhat less equipped, with a few awkward “Sorry for your loss” comments, a memorial or funeral, and then within a few weeks, everyone else has moved on and sorta kinda expected you to also because grief makes everyone uncomfortable. Besides, we move so fast-paced anyway, who has time to dwell on what happened yesterday?
But Disney pauses longer. Even in a short time span in a theater (or rather at home on the couch these days), Disney can pull you through the full depth of grief. We’ve been given the opportunity to examine all its sides, and are often shown how the post-loss life is not a “return to normal” situation, but rather a “forever altered” state of being. And through it all, we see the value of becoming stronger for having moved through the grieving process to become a new us we never knew we could be.
One of my favorite examples of this is the movie Up. No other film pulls you through a whole lifetime’s worth of experiences so poignantly in a four-minute time span.
Carl Fredricksen and Ellie move through their married life in a sequence with all the familiar ups and downs. Dreaming big, financial setbacks, facing the loss of starting a family, changing course and growing new dreams. But of course, illness takes Ellie away before they reach the ever-elusive Paradise Falls, prompting an extraordinary helium-filled adventure for our loveable geriatric curmudgeon.
Carl spends most of this film stuck in the grieving process. We know there are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. While considering what stage he is in, I struggled with placing him in any particular one. And then realized we aren’t supposed to.
Here’s the thing, friends. Grief is not linear, we don’t always move smoothly through it to the other side, stage by stage. Like Mr. Fredericksen, we skip stages. We go back and get angry when we thought we were past our anger. We pause in stages of depression where getting up each day is a struggle and find ways to negotiate our way out of facing the grief, wondering if we could have done something differently to have avoided it altogether.
In the end, Disney brings us through Carl’s story to the other side of acceptance in that beautiful moment when he surrenders his home and dreams of Paradise Falls for a new purpose… the caring of another who has also faced loss.
You see, being together in our loss is what makes it bearable. We virtually traveled through the Disney parks together via brilliant YouTube creators when all our parks were closed. We collectively mourn through online communities lamenting Disneyland’s seemingly out of reach reopening date. We come together in grieving for those who have lost their livelihoods, and for our plans of seeing them again that has come to an unexpected halt (not unlike the end of the Seven Dwarves Mine Train or Matterhorn Bobsleds… no matter how hard I try to remember to brace myself, the abrupt stop still catches me by surprise).
Up isn’t the only movie that brings us through this journey through grief. Frozen 2 openly embraces loss as Anna lands in a dark place and sings of doing the next right thing as a way to move forward. Big Hero 6 in itself is an emotional story of Hiro losing his brother, struggling through the stages of loss, and finding community on the other side as a way to heal and continue on, using his brother’s encouragement as a catalyst for his future.
There is no easy solution, instruction manual, or fast-fix for how to move through the grief. But having people nearby who understand what you’re going through and who pull you towards hope are what make all the difference.
Finding your people and reaching out when you feel overwhelmed is how we collectively journey through the unknown. But it’s also those around us who encourage us to think bigger when we get stuck in what we are determined is our life now.
You may have had Paradise Falls dreams, but maybe someone is waiting for you to be their mentor and friend instead, a little closer to home.
So let’s continue to grieve the losses together and dream in new ways for our life on the other side of the process.
As Walt would say, “Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious … and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”
I’d love to hear what Disney moments have inspired you to keep going when times are hard, or what films/attractions you can think of that move through the grieving process. Let me know in the comments below!
Also, BIG NEWS! Now you can receive weekly Disney inspiration straight to your inbox! Simply subscribe below, and I’ll send you the latest posts every week, plus some FREE phone wallpapers to add a dose of magic to every day! ?
