It's been several months now since I rented Bridge to Terabithia, and these thoughts have been resting in my head long enough, so it's time to quit procrastinating. I had never read the book as a child, but my wife had to read it in school, and she was initially put off by the marketing for this film when it was released to theaters. The trailers made it look like another action-packed, fantasy-laced epic like The Chronicles of Narnia or Lord of the Rings. A similar stigma was attached to the dark adult fantasy Pan's Labyrinth and is currently being attached to The Golden Compass. But what lies behind the misleading marketing of Terabithia has not to do with any supposed atheistic subtext, but rather a shocking twist of events in the story, when one of the main characters (who is in many ways, the hero of the story) dies. And unlike Aslan, the character doesn't come back. The fantasy elements of this film are secondary, on the fringe, and only serve as a literary device in a story that is really, in all essence, about making sense of tragic loss. Many parents were surprised and dismayed to discover they weren't taking their kids to Narnia, but to a more disturbing tale hitting closer to home.

I wasn't alone in feeling sad and shocked by the turn of events in this film, even though my wife told me in advance what would happen. Even when "it's only a movie," you're never really prepared for a sudden death, and I took it rather personally. Perhaps in my state of mind at the time, I related too close to some of the losses I've experienced. The original book was based on the experience of the author's son, whose best friend was struck by lightning and killed when they were only children. Bridge to Terabithia was written to examine, expose, and try to make sense of why, in this world, people are so senselessly taken away from us.

I don't have an answer to this question, but I think this story illustrated a glimpse into one possible reason why God allows our loved ones to leave us without warning. I think sometimes, certain people must die so that other people in estrangement from each other can become closer. (SPOILER ALERT!) After Leslie dies in Bridge to Terabithia, in the final scenes we see that, as a result, Jesse begins to form a closer relationship with both his father and his sister. Up until that point, he struggles to please his father and tries to shun his sister, so there is strain in both of these relationships. Having lost Leslie, the most important person in his life, he is forced to mend his relations with the ones who he was previously estranged from. The loss is still prevalent, but the healing comes in the ripple effect caused by that loss.

I believe I feel this way because of the similar situations I've seen personally. When my wife and I had only been dating a short time, her mother suffered a heart attack in front of us and passed away a few days later. The loss still hurts, but the result, over time, has been a gradual mending of the relationship between my wife and her dad. Her mom was in many ways the mediator that held those two at bay, as they have very similar personalities which caused strain at times. Now with her gone, my wife and father-in-law have learned to understand each other better and become closer.

In my own family, before my grandmother passed away in 2002, my own dad was rather estranged and distant from his parents and sister. Having been by her side when she lost her battle with cancer, their family unit had a chance to bond together again, in a way that might not have happened yet in the same fashion if she were still here. My grandfather finally joined her just this year, and now there are a whole new series of ripple effects in life relationships taking place.

When it comes to tragic loss of the ones we love, we will never completely understand how it all fits into God's plan, perhaps not until we go home to re-join them. Until then, the stories told by those left behind can serve to give us clues into how we can turn the tragedy around to healing with each other.