Even though it’s inevitable, it never hurts any less when a friendship ends or a relative dies. We expect the people we love to always be there, and we tend to take them for granted. Therefore, it is a huge shock when we lose those relationships. When they go, it’s hard to not let our sadness consume our memories of them, and instead focus on the good times we shared. Even though losing them was sad, we have to keep the good memories in mind and realize that, even though it was sad to lose them, it’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. This is shown in the Bluey episode “Camping.”
In the episode, while on a camping trip with her family, Bluey meets and befriends a boy named Jean-Luc who speaks French. Every morning like clockwork, they meet up to play with each other, and part ways when it’s time for dinner. They play a lot of games together, like building a little house out of sticks, planting a seed to grow a tree, and hunting Bluey’s dad, Bandit, pretending he’s a wild pig. Despite the language barrier between them, Bluey and Jean-Luc are able to enjoy each other’s company, have fun playing together, and find ways to understand each other, like when they draw on a rock to communicate their plan of catching the “wild pig” (Bandit).
Despite all the good times they share with each other, unfortunately, it must come to an end. On Jean-Luc’s last day, when their parents call them back for dinner, Jean-Luc tries to tell Bluey he is leaving. Because they don’t speak the same language, Bluey just assumes they will meet the next day as usual. She cheerfully runs off, having no idea she won’t be seeing her new friend again, at least not for a very long time.
The next day, Bluey sees a little bud start to grow from the seed she and Jean-Luc planted. She excitedly runs to go tell Jean-Luc, but his family’s tent is gone and he is nowhere to be found. She asks her mom, Chilli, about it, and Chilli says that they left earlier that morning. This new information devastates Bluey, who goes to sit by herself where she and Jean-Luc would normally play, and sobs. That night, Bluey accompanies Chilli and her little sister Bingo on a trip to the bathroom, and Bluey expresses sadness that Jean-Luc had to leave and wishes she could keep playing with him. Chilli tells her, “Sometimes special people come into our lives, stay for a bit, and then they have to go.” Bluey says that’s sad, and Chilli responds, “It is, but the bit where they were here was happy, wasn’t it?” Bluey reminisces on the time they spent together, and Chilli responds “Maybe that makes it all worth it.” Bluey asks if she’ll ever see her friend again and Chilli replies, “You never know, the world is a magical place.”
Over the years, the little bud that Bluey and Jean-Luc planted ended up growing into a big beautiful tree with lots of flowers. We then see teenage Bluey, her family having returned to the same camping spot years later, sit under the tree to read. She then hears a voice say “Hello, Bluey”, and turns to see a teenaged Jean-Luc, waving at her.
This episode resonates because we all have lost people we loved, whether it be a friend breakup, a romantic breakup, or a relative dying, and we all have had to deal with the grief of losing a relationship that was so important to us. I, for instance, lost my grandmother in 2021 after a long battle with dementia and Covid, and I could not help but feel so much anger and sadness that someone I was so close to, who brought me so much joy and comfort in my youth, was taken from me and my family in such an unfair way. I could not help but remember how things used to be and how I used to love going over to her house. I knew I could always count on her to spoil me and my sister, like a good grandma would. My grandma and grandpa would babysit me and my sister at our house, and I’d feel sad and angry thinking how it would never be like that again. “Why does it have to be this way?” I thought. “It’s so unfair! I miss Grandma! I wish things could be like they used to be!” But what I have been coming to realize is that even though the end of her life was sad, that is not the part I should dwell on when I think of her. Like Chilli said, the bit while she was here was happy, very much so. I always looked forward to seeing her, I always could count on her to give me extra dessert, and I always liked watching Curious George with her when I was six. She always knew how to cheer me up when I was sad. Maybe Chilli’s right. Maybe the good times you had with them do make it all worth it.
In addition, even though we wish it didn’t have to be so, as this episode shows, some relationships are just not meant to last forever. This episode reminds me of being a little kid and ending up befriending another kid in the play-place at McDonald’s. You are having lots of fun playing together, but eventually one or both of you must go home, and you never see each other again. It’s sad, but unfortunately, this is how some friendships in life work: they’re not meant to last forever. But just because someone wasn’t meant to be in your life forever, does not mean the time you spent with them wasn’t valuable or precious. You should still treasure the time you spent together, as obviously they meant something to you.
In short, sometimes in life some relationships last shorter than we’d like. We wish we could have more time with the ones that we love, and we can’t help but feel sad that our time ended so prematurely and dwell on how it ended. Instead, it helps to focus on the joy they brought when they were here. Even though how they left was sad, like Chilli said, the bit where they were here was happy, and they did manage to make a positive contribution to your life, no matter how immense or brief. Maybe that does make it all worth it.