The Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

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 …. 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.

“I just keep trying to remind myself that even though I’ve lost their love, I was blessed to have had it for so many years. If anything, I was overly loved,” I explained to my friend J as I battled profound grief.

“That’s right. Now what are you going to do with that [love]?” he challenged.

The straightforward dare wasn’t made in frustration; in fact, it was presented to me in Christian fellowship. Nevertheless, it caught me off guard. I knew not how to respond for I had never truly loved outside the bounds of familial or romantic relationships. And yet, it made perfect sense.

What good was all that love I’d experienced and witnessed if I couldn’t pass on my loved ones’ torch in their absence? So, I filed the advice in a corner of my mind, waiting for the grief to subside enough that I could examine it from a rational perspective.

Several months later, the ebony cloak of depression finally starting to lift, another conversation brought the challenge back into the light.

“He was good for me, but not in the way he probably expected,” I confessed to an older confidante about a dating situation gone sour. “Through him, I realized that losing love isn’t the worst it gets. I could have had a life like his and never known that love at all.”

I then went on to clarify, “I guess I just couldn’t understand why God could give me these people to love only to take them away from me.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, my confidante replied, “I guess they were His before they were yours; maybe He just lent them to you.”

Surely, it’s a loan I wish I never had to pay back, but there’s solace in knowing I can fully entrust them to my Creditor’s hands. Perhaps realizing that, I can now move on for all of us.