Eli and Grandma: The Seven Curtains

One morning, Eli sat beneath the old oak tree in the backyard, frustrated and fidgety. He had a stick in his hand and was poking it into the dirt, drawing circles that disappeared with each gust of wind.

Grandma joined him with a tin box of fresh ginger cookies and two mugs of cocoa. She didn’t speak at first. She just sat, letting the silence soften the morning.

Finally, Eli sighed. “I don’t get it, Grandma. Sometimes the world just feels… heavy. Like everyone’s mad or scared or trying too hard or giving up. And I don’t know what I’m supposed to do in all of it.”

Grandma handed him a cookie. “That’s a big feeling for a small heart, baby.”

Eli looked down. “I feel like I’m stuck, even when I’m trying to move.”

Grandma took a slow sip of cocoa and nodded. “You know, a long time ago, someone told me that we’re all born into a house with seven curtains covering the windows. At first, the light gets through just a little, and we believe the shadows we see are the whole world.”

Eli perked up. “Seven curtains? What kind?”

---

She held up one weathered finger. “The first curtain is Separation. It makes you think you’re alone, that you have to figure everything out by yourself.”

A second finger. “Then there’s Scarcity—the idea that there’s never enough: not enough love, time, food, kindness. So we grab and guard and forget how to share.”

A third. “Control makes us believe we have to hold on tight or everything will fall apart.”

Eli leaned in, eyes wide.

“Unworthiness,” she said next, “is a whisper that says ‘you’re not good enough.’ Even when you are. Especially when you are.”

She continued. “Then comes Time, convincing us that we’re always too late or not there yet. That joy is either behind us or way out ahead.”

Grandma took a breath. “The sixth curtain is Fear—that old friend who pretends to keep us safe, but really just locks the doors from the inside.”

“And the last one?” Eli whispered.

“Death,” Grandma said gently. “The biggest illusion of all. It tells us that endings are final, when really, they’re just new beginnings dressed in quiet robes.”

---

Eli sat silently, letting the words settle around him like falling leaves.

“So how do we get rid of the curtains?” he asked.

Grandma smiled. “We don’t rip them down. We notice them. We ask if they’re real. And bit by bit, we let the light in. Every act of love, every moment of stillness, every time we remember who we really are—that’s a hand pulling back a curtain.”

Eli looked up at the sky through the leaves of the oak tree. Sunlight danced across his face.

“I think I saw the light today,” he said softly.

Grandma nodded, her eyes warm. “That’s how it begins, love. One window at a time.”

And as Eli walked away, the old oak tree whispered, its leaves rustling with knowledge, echoing through the branches like a forgotten truth remembered: you were never in the dark—the curtains were just waiting for you to notice.