Hidden Bridges
I find it amazing how something as simple as a children's movie can set off so many thoughts in my mind. Pity it's a bit harder to quiet it down.
Somehow I got guilted into seeing "Bridge to Terabithia" with my little sister and her friend today, and it was a bit... different of an experience than I was expecting. It was good, as far as kid's movies go, and mirrored the book (which most of us have read in school at one time or another) fairly well. It wasn't the movie that got to me, really, as much as the memories that it brought up, and the thoughts that those memories led to.
Perhaps the person that suddenly appears in our lives, teaches us something, and then disappears is one of those universal archetypes people look for in their lives, I dunno, but for some reason Leslie Burke's death brought back particularly vivid memories of the death of one of my closest friends, someone I haven't thought about in a long while. I think that covering up the issues that bother us, pretending they don't exist so we can forget and move on, is just a survival technique; it allows us to go about our lives with minimal disturbance. But we build our lives on these buried memories, the ground is bound to shift sooner or later.
We all have our ways of coping with senseless loss, we try to put reason to it because the death of someone close is bound to drive us mad unless we rationalize a reason for their death. We try to make their existence significant by remembering what they did and what they taught us, we tell ourselves that they are in a better place, that we will see them again someday, or that they will be back among us soon enough. Sympathies aside, these are all just ways of easing our own pain, finding clever ways of forgetting about those we've lost.
I don't claim to know why souls are taken from us, at times seemingly at random, or where they go, or even if they exist at all. But I realize now that no matter how thoroughly we "cope" with a person's loss, that pain is still lurking in shallow graves in our minds, waiting to be unearthed. Those who disagree with me have never seen a widow of 30 years cry over her husband's death.
Perhaps one day, when our souls are ready, we will see the real order behind the universe, instead of trying to create it for ourselves. Until then, the memories of the departed, joyful and tearful, will remain in my heart. I don't see any reason to rationalize anymore, and in a way, that's freed us all. They were who they were, and I am who I am. I'm glad to have been part of their existence.
~japlin
Somehow I got guilted into seeing "Bridge to Terabithia" with my little sister and her friend today, and it was a bit... different of an experience than I was expecting. It was good, as far as kid's movies go, and mirrored the book (which most of us have read in school at one time or another) fairly well. It wasn't the movie that got to me, really, as much as the memories that it brought up, and the thoughts that those memories led to.
Perhaps the person that suddenly appears in our lives, teaches us something, and then disappears is one of those universal archetypes people look for in their lives, I dunno, but for some reason Leslie Burke's death brought back particularly vivid memories of the death of one of my closest friends, someone I haven't thought about in a long while. I think that covering up the issues that bother us, pretending they don't exist so we can forget and move on, is just a survival technique; it allows us to go about our lives with minimal disturbance. But we build our lives on these buried memories, the ground is bound to shift sooner or later.
We all have our ways of coping with senseless loss, we try to put reason to it because the death of someone close is bound to drive us mad unless we rationalize a reason for their death. We try to make their existence significant by remembering what they did and what they taught us, we tell ourselves that they are in a better place, that we will see them again someday, or that they will be back among us soon enough. Sympathies aside, these are all just ways of easing our own pain, finding clever ways of forgetting about those we've lost.
I don't claim to know why souls are taken from us, at times seemingly at random, or where they go, or even if they exist at all. But I realize now that no matter how thoroughly we "cope" with a person's loss, that pain is still lurking in shallow graves in our minds, waiting to be unearthed. Those who disagree with me have never seen a widow of 30 years cry over her husband's death.
Perhaps one day, when our souls are ready, we will see the real order behind the universe, instead of trying to create it for ourselves. Until then, the memories of the departed, joyful and tearful, will remain in my heart. I don't see any reason to rationalize anymore, and in a way, that's freed us all. They were who they were, and I am who I am. I'm glad to have been part of their existence.
~japlin