Terabithia

So many thoughts, feelings, and ponderings this last few weeks and just don't have what it takes to put them all into words that will be easily understood. I wish I had the words and honesty that my friend, Diana, has or the ability to even sort out what it is I am thinking and feeling. Too many years of being forced to shut it out I guess.

One of the things that has touched me A LOT is the book, The Bridges to Terabithia. We went and saw the movie last week and I was actually quite impressed with how well they did sticking to the story. You don't get to know the characters quite as well but you never do in a movie. They left out some minor things but nothing too disappointing. The one thing that did get left out is a few paragraphs at the very end of the story that deeply touched me.

I suppose with my thoughts on Diana today, who lost her daughter one year ago today, it caused me to want to post this very special exerpt from the book:

" He thought about it all day, how before Leslie came, he had been a nothing - a stupid, weird little kid who drew funny pictures and chased around a cow field trying to act big - trying to hide a whole mob of foolish little fears running riot inside his gut.

It was Leslie who had taken him from the cow pasture into Terabithia and turned him into a king. He had thought that was it. Wasn't king the best you could be ? Now it occurred to him that perhaps Terabithia was like a castle where you came to be knighted. After you stayed for a while and grew strong you had to move on. For hadn't Leslie, even in Terabithia, tried to push back the walls of his mind and make him see beyond to the shining world - huge and terrible and beautiful and very fragile? (Handle with care - everything - even the predators.)

Now it was time for him to move out. She wasn't there, so he must go for both of them. It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength.

As for the terrors ahead - for he did not fool himself that they were all behind him - well, you just have to stand up to your fear and not let it squeeze you white. Right, Leslie?

Right. "