Possibly apocryphal, as received from Rahul Mehta:
When he was 40, the renowned Bohemian novelist and short story writer FRANZ KAFKA (1883–1924), who never married and had no children, was strolling through Steglitz Park in Berlin, when he chanced upon a young girl crying her eyes out because she had lost her favorite doll.
She and Kafka looked for the doll without success. Kafka told her to meet him there the next day and they would look again.
The next day, when they still had not found the doll, Kafka gave the girl a letter “written” by the doll that said,
“Please do not cry. I have gone on a trip to see the world. I’m going to write to you about my adventures.”
Thus began a story that continued to the end of Kafka’s life.
When they would meet, Kafka read aloud his carefully composed letters of adventures and conversations about the beloved doll, which the girl found enchanting. Finally, Kafka read her a letter of the story that brought the doll back to Berlin, and he then gave her a doll he had purchased. “This does not look at all like my doll,” she said. Kafka handed her another letter that explained, “My trips, they have changed me.” The girl hugged the new doll and took it home with her.
A year later, Kafka died.
Many years later, the now grown-up girl found a letter tucked into an unnoticed crevice in the doll. The tiny letter, signed by Kafka, said,
“Everything you love is very likely to be lost, but in the end, love will return in a different way….”
End
Sanmargam 
Reblogged this on Kaleidoscope.
LikeLike
Oh Raghu, thank you so very very much for posting this. I wasn’t familiar with Kafka’s way of putting it, But I think it is profoundly true. And it helps most especially when someone shares that value with me right now.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mercifully life has a way of pulling us away and forward from those inconsolable moments.
LikeLike
Oh! How heart-wrenchingly true! Reading this à plethora of feelings and emotions passed through my heart and wrenched my soul!
Nothing can replace ‘the lost, loved one/ones’ but the expérience is the same and perhaps that ‘bonds and binds’ us – we the transient travellers !
That ‘loved one’s love is unique & irreplaceable’ but yes love comes from unseen and unknown ways……. 🙏
LikeLiked by 1 person
As I said, mercifully life has a way of pulling us away and forward from those inconsolable moments.
One such moment was when my mother passed away some years ago. A kind friend gave me a way to cope up. He said ‘dont think she has gone away. she always remains with you. it is even ok to talk to her.’
Well, life goes on. Isn’t it easy to be a saint without attachments?
LikeLike
YES, OUR LOVED ONES ARE ALWAYS WITH US.
But we indeed miss their physical presence, their voice, their words of comfort and love!
Such a strange world we live in! We believe and live as though we will continue to be always together till one of us is snatched away by Time!
What is all this about???
Only the question remains UNANSWERED eternally ! 🙏🕉️
LikeLiked by 1 person
Maya!
LikeLike
Yes Maya – Moham!
My paternal grandmother used to repeatedly say: This is Maya – Moham which as a child I could never comprehend! And now….. Caught in the Web of Maya! But despite being called ‘illusion’ is it not Real ??? 🙏
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, no way we can dismiss it as unreal, that is the Maya and its hold!
LikeLiked by 1 person
what a beauty! From now on I will certainly love Kafka as a human being!
LikeLiked by 1 person