A cute little story from my mother:
My mother was born in
1940, and when she was 3, my grandfather went off to fight in the
South Pacific. Thinking that he had left forever, my mother decided that she was just going to stop
eating. As she grew thinner and thinner, my
grandmother panicked, and wrote a long letter to my
grandfather asking what on earth she should do, as she'd already tried everything she could think of.
My grandfather wrote back, and this letter was read out loud to my mother one morning over an
uneaten breakfast. It stated that he was going to send a little
bird to watch my mother, and if he found out from it that she hadn't started eating again, she was going to be in
big trouble. As my grandmother was reading this, a little bird came and sat on the open
windowsill, staring my mother down. Finally, she picked up the fork, took a bite of food, and
the bird flew away.