Once upon a feeling #4 Always in my heart read by Madlaina

What does grief feel like when you're a child? In this episode, Madlaina reads Always In My Heart — a gooshi story about Milo, a little boy who loses his grandfather and learns that love doesn't disappear when someone does.

This is one of the most requested topics in our community — and one of the hardest to talk about. Grief isn't just about death. It's about missing a friendship that fell apart, a summer camp that ended, a world that feels a little overcast and droopy.

After the story, Rita sits down with Madlaina — her 11-year-old daughter — for a real conversation about what grief means, what color it is, and where she feels it in her body (her answer will surprise you).

📖 STORY SUMMARY

Always In My Heart follows Milo, a little boy who loves painting with his grandfather. When grandpa dies, Milo feels all kinds of things — sadness, anger, confusion, and sometimes nothing at all. Through a memory book, his family's honesty, and a paintbrush he finds in the art box, Milo discovers that love doesn't end — it lives on in the things we carry.

A gentle, honest story for children ages 3–10 and the grown-ups who love them.

Read by: Madlaina Bezzola

⭐ New to the podcast? We recommend listening to the companion episode — Beyond the Stories — where Rita sits down with Jessica, a certified child life specialist, to help parents navigate grief conversations with their kids. Listen in order. 

The magic is in both together.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to One's Upon the Feeling. This is the podcast where we talk about all things growing up, the fun parts, the weird parts, the messy parts, and the magical parts too. I'm your host, Rita, and I'm so glad you're here. Are you ready? Let's dive right in. Hi, friends. Welcome to Ones Upon a Feeling This week. I'm Rita, your host. Today we are tackling a big topic, grief. It's one of those things that most people, grownups included, don't want to talk about. , Grief comes in many different forms and is usually the feelings that we get when we have lost something or someone.

It could be big. It could be small, it could last for months and years or just a few minutes, regardless of what and how it feels like it's uniquely ours and a [00:01:00] lot of the times we need some help to move through it to live with it. Madlaina today is here to read as a story on our app called Always In My Heart, it is a story about grief.

It is about Milo losing his grandfather. , Unlike all the other stories that we have had on the podcast so far, I've always recommended everyone to listen to the story first and then move on to the Beyond The Story episode where I sit down with an expert about the topic. I think this one deserve a little bit of a topsy-turvy for those parents.

I understand this is a big topic and not all of us are ready. To be in this space talking about grief. So I actually highly recommend you listen to the Beyond the Story episode where I sit down with Ms. Jessica Correnti, a Child counselor on. Grief in general and child education when it comes to grief [00:02:00] and how to help them move through it, the benefit, , and things that you should be paying attention to before diving into the conversation with your child.

So here it is. , If you're ready, Madlaina is ready too. And she is going to read always in my heart.

Always in my heart a story about grief. Read by Madlaina Bezzola, mlo loved painting with grandpa. They would sit at the big wooden table by the window with the sunlight spilled in, like warm honey. Mlo would paint flowers and grandpa would paint birds. Sometimes they didn't even talk, just painted and smiled.

Art is how we show our hearts. Grandpa used to say Mila's, heartfelt, big, and happy When they painted together

one morning, the house felt different. Quiet.

Mila saw mom and dad sitting on the couch. Mom's eyes were red. [00:03:00] Dad looked sad. Mom pulled MLO into her lap. Sweetheart, she said softly. Grandpa died last night. His body stopped working and he can't be here with us anymore. Milo's tummy felt funny like it had dropped into his toes. Will he come back? Melo asked. Dad shook his head. No love. When someone dies, they don't come back, but we can always remember them.

He paused. You might wish you could come back. I know I do, but when someone dies, that means their body will not work ever again. MLO didn't know what to say, so he cried and mom held him tight.

Mlo felt all kinds of things. Sometimes he was sad and quiet. Sometimes he didn't even want to get dressed. Sometimes he was mad and didn't know why. Once he even [00:04:00] shouted at his teacher and sometimes he just wanted to play and not think about it.

It's okay to feel anything you feel Mom said. Feelings are like colors. They can mix change and come out in different ways. Milo nodded. He drew a picture of a red storm. Then he added lots more colors. He wasn't sure what it was supposed to be, but he knew it was a big feeling. He put it on the fridge. Dad gave MLO a hug.

That's your heart talking. He said

one day MLO found grandpa's paintbrush in the art box. He held it close.

Then he had an idea. He painted a picture of the two of them sitting by the window painting together. He added grandpa's, birds and his own flowers. We can make a special book of grandpa memories. Mom [00:05:00] suggested stories, pictures, anything you want. So they did. They laughed at funny stories and cried a little too.

It felt good to remember.

Time went by. The house didn't feel so quiet anymore. Milo still missed Grandpa. He always would. Some days he felt that missing feeling more than others. But when he painted, he felt the memory of grandpa near, he knew grandpa's body was gone, but a love they shared was still right there, warm and big like sunshine through the window.

Mlo pressed his hand on his chest. You're right here, grandpa. He whispered. Always in my heart, the end.

Thank you for reading this story, for me Madlaina. No problem, no problem, mom. So, one question, , I always have for kiddos is, what do you [00:06:00] think grief means when you hear the word grief gets thrown around by the adults? what does it mean to you? I feel like grief means the feelings during or after some loss, no matter how big or small.

Does it have a color for you? Well, grief isn't just one feeling. It's lots of feelings. So I feel like some good colors to describe grief. Well, for anger, you feel angry when you're grief, when you're grieving. And so anger to me feels like, like a red, like a big angry red. You also feel sad, and that could feel like, like a bluish gray to me.

And if it was a weather, what do you think? How do you describe that scene? Um, a lot of people think like sadness is like rainy, but in my mind. Grief isn't like rainy, it's like overcast and [00:07:00] everything just feels like its happiness went down a notch. Like the flowers are drooping a little bit and a little, there's like leaves on the floor from trees.

I can see that. I can't relate to that. And it feels like there were moments in your life that may have been true. Can you think of a couple of scenarios? What times that your world felt a little bluish gray or maybe red even with leaves on the ground? Well, um, one time in the summer I went to theater camp for two weeks and my friends and I had such a good time that on the last day after the show, we were all crying because we didn't know when we would see each other again.

That's when they won and there was a time when, um. I felt like there was a friendship that sort of just fell apart and that made me feel sad too. , Where do you [00:08:00] feel this sadness in your body? Can you pinpoint it? Yeah. This is gonna sound weird, but um, when I grieve, I feel it in my nose. Your nose? Yeah.

It feels like someone like. Took like a bunch of chili oil and, and put it on a paint on a paintbrush and just painted the sides of my nostrils. It feels like just, it feels like it's burning. And what do you do when that happens? Um, I, I like take deep breaths and eventually after like five or so, five, 10 seconds it passes.

Okay. So it's like a very short spurt Yeah. Sometimes it's, sometimes it takes longer, like 15 seconds for it to pass. Sometimes it's short, like three seconds. Okay. now if another kick came up to you and said, oh, I really miss something, or I really miss someone, or I wish this happened [00:09:00] and it didn't, what would you say to them?

I would say like.

Whatever is not here, it's not gone. It's just missing. It's just not here. Like there's a song in um, Mary Poppins Returns, it's called Where the Lost Things Go. And this song, there's a line in it and I think it's. I think it's one of the most funniest lines in the song, but it's very true too. It says I lost my favorite spoon, but it was just hiding behind the moon.

That is so beautiful. well, last question for you. It's end of school day. Everybody's a little tired. If the person or the thing that you miss see it a friend or this friendship, um, that you wish pan out differently, if any of them could hear you right now. What would you say? What would you say to them?

What would you want them to know?

If I [00:10:00] had friends that could hear me right now, maybe not so friends, I would say I wish things were different, and that's really what grief is like. In January in 2025, a bunch of people lost their homes. Mm-hmm. And every day, in fact, all around the world, people lose friends and family, but really grief is just wishing that something was different.

Thank you. You're welcome.

 Thank you Malina for reading Always in my Heart for us, and thank you all out there. Our audience too for tuning in and sharing this very, very special space with us. Grief is a big one and it's a hard one, but knowing that we have a community around us is oftentimes what helped me move through it, and I'm so [00:11:00] glad you're here.

Now, if you haven't heard beyond the story episode, that is, , the companion to this particular story, please stay tuned. Ms. Jessica Correnti, who I had the pleasure and the honor to work with, to kind of like, um, collaborate with on social media. She is just a wealth of knowledge, both from her own personal experience and her expertise in the field.

What she has to share is going to help all the parents out there through big and small grieving moments. So highly recommend you listen to that because a will change how we all parent, , when things get hard. That will be all for today. Thank you so much. Take care of your hearts and I will see you here next time.

Bye. [00:12:00]