When Life Changes Without Warning

 When Life Changes Without Warning

A Grief Reflection for Dr. Seuss Week

      It is read across America and almost every school has gravitated to Dr. Seuss.  Children at my kids school will be dressing like the Cat in the Hat, the Lorax, and some of them will even look like the Grinch that stole Christmas.  Dr. Seuss is an icon in American children's literature.  Who doesn't love his silly rhymes, strange creatures, colorful stories, and my personal favorite, who roast beast.  I still am not sure what that is but every time I read that I end up feeling hungry.  Stories like Hop on Pop, Green Eggs and Ham, and the Cat in the Hat have been enchanting children for decades.  But his stories are more then that, there is a deeper meaning below the surface.  Hidden inside many of those pages are surprisingly deep truths about life.

      One of the most famous lines from Dr. Seuss says, “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”  Those words strike an adult differently then a child.  Anyone who has lost a spouse knows those words are easier said than done.  To be fair with you, that's a lot of what life is like after losing someone that we love.  People tell us things that sound easy, but are incredibly difficult to practice, even things like smiling.  Grief doesn’t feel like smiling. It feels like silence in a house that used to be full of laughter. It feels like reaching for someone who isn’t there. It feels like trying to figure out how the story keeps going when the person you thought would be in every chapter is suddenly gone.  Smiling is often faked by the grieving person.  They wear it as a mask to make others not feel uncomfortable.

      Another line from Dr. Seuss’s book Oh, the Places You'll Go! says:

“You’ll be on your way up!

You’ll be seeing great sights!

You’ll join the high fliers

who soar to high heights.”

But a few pages later, he says something even more honest:

“I’m sorry to say so

but, sadly, it’s true

that Bang-ups and Hang-ups

can happen to you.”

      Grief is one of those “bang-ups.”  We don't dwell on the possible bang ups and hang ups of life.  We read about them happening to other people, we are moved with temporary sympathy, but then life moves on.  But indeed those hardships of life can possibly strike us.  One of those moments when life doesn’t follow the plan we thought God had written for us.  None of us enter into life expecting the morbid to happen.  I mean, we know it could possibly happen, but we don't really prepare for it.  

      Yet the story doesn’t end there.  Near the end of the book he writes:

“And will you succeed?

Yes! You will, indeed!

(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)”

      For those walking through grief, success doesn’t mean forgetting the one you loved.  It doesn't even mean that you move on.  Success isn't gauged by a grade that you get while you are grieving.  You will be judged by yours peers, but their judgment doesn't matter.  Some will think you are failing, others succeeding, some will think you are taking too long, others that you are rushing things.  Your life becomes a mailbox for letters to the editor where everyone feels the need to put in their two cents.  But instead success is graded on how we learn to carry their memory and love in our future.  It's measured by learning to build a garden around our grief.  It's measured by allowing grief to teach us instead of master us.  It's measured by pressing forward, not moving on.  It's measured by additions, not replacements.  It means discovering that God is still writing your story, even after a chapter you never wanted to end.

      Scripture reminds us of this truth, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18)."  The truth is, grief changes us.  No one who ever deeply loved and has deeply grieved has stayed the same.  Love changes a person, so does grief.  We are not the same, despite what the peanut gallery may think.  We are new creatures and God, who is the greater Potter continues to shape us, mold us, and to give us new identity.   But it doesn’t erase the love we had.  God doesn't have an eraser for those who we loved deeply.  They are always a part of who we are. And it doesn’t cancel the future God still has ahead.

      Maybe that’s the lesson hidden inside the rhymes and silly characters of Dr. Seuss.  Life will take us to places we never planned to go.  But even there, especially there, God is still with us.  And the story isn’t over yet.  Your story isn't over yet.