Geppetto's Lesson

To Love a Child

Now we all know how it went that Pinocchio giggled, and moved, and talked and such… so we won’t go into detail about the mechanics of it all, but we will say that Geppetto fainted from the shock of it all.

When he awoke, he found his house destroyed.  Many parents have come home from work to find the same thing I’d wager…. But in any case, Geppetto was severely unprepared for it.  He sat up from where he’d fallen to the floor and gazed around the room with a glassy dazed sort of look and… started laughing.  Yes, LAUGHING!!  He was so distraught that he couldn’t even figure out what was so funny and began sobbing right along with the laughs.  And where was Pinocchio in all of this? –well, as far a Geppetto could see, he most certainly wasn’t here.

-Oh

Now THAT sobered him up.  “Pinocchio!! Oh my!! Where could he have gone to?”  Geppetto, even though disturbed by the turn of events had poured all of his love and devotion into the creation of that one little wooden doll.  That love certainly had not turned off because the doll had come to life… indeed, Geppetto found his heart clenching at the mere thought of anything happening to his little boy.

“He could be killed!” Geppetto exclaimed and then drew up short.  “What am I saying? He’s a doll!” –but that did not ease the tension Geppetto was most definitely feeling.  The anxiety was real.  –and it wasn’t going anywhere.  “I have to find him!!” he cried in anguish.  And with that, Geppetto grabbed his good jacket and ran out of the door not even bothering to close the door, let alone lock it up.

Up and down the streets he ran, tears streaming down his face.  To be perfectly honest with you, Geppetto looked the part of a crazed lunatic screaming out, “PINOCCHIO!!! WHERE ARE YOU BOY?! PINOCCHIO!!” all over town… down every street and alley-way he screamed and called.  Candles were flaring to life in every window as people leaned out over the casings to find out who this idiot was outside at this time of the night and why he was so frantically and terrifyingly screaming. 

“He’s lost his child,” a mother murmured to herself holding the blanket of her own dead and gone baby girl close to her chest, “I must go and help him find the boy.”  And so she did.

Her name was Lia, and she was both a childless mother and the widow of one man.  She plays an important role in the coming story, so I suggest you remember her in the pages to come. 

Lia brought the little blanket with her thinking that a lost child in this cold night would indeed need some warmth when found, wrapped a heavy shawl around her shoulders and fled into the streets to find the child.  And find him she did…

She had searched EVERYWHERE and finally, she came to Geppetto’s shop where she observed the open door and the wrecked interior.  On a hunch, she ducked her head into the door and called softly, “Pinocchio? Are you here child?”  Lia paused a moment and then heard diminutive sniffles and raspy little sobs.  “Pinocchio, my name is Lia, I live just down the street.  Your father is very worried and looking everywhere for you.  –May I come in?”

Pinocchio stifled a sob and answered, “Maestra Lia, I have been horrible, and now I cannot find my father.”  Lia, hearing the respectful address of the child was moved to compassion and went over to the boy. 

“Why, you are a little wooden boy!” she exclaimed in awe of the very real, living, breathing wooden child before her.  Automatically her mind went to her own lost bambina.  This boy would never suffer her fate, but he could still suffer.  And suffering he was. 

Lia bent down and scooped Pinocchio into her arms and sat with him in her lap and let him cry. 

Why yes! –the boy COULD cry… big sloppy sappy tears that rolled down his perfect little wooden cheeks in hot streams.  By this time the woman (who was also a very young woman to have lost so much) cared not how he came to be or how he lived, she had fallen in love with this darling wooden child.  ‘If only, I could stay with him’ she thought, and the tears fell silently down her own cheeks.  “Pinocchio, child, dry your eyes.  Your father is not lost, he is only looking for you.  Would you like to find him?”