Smile Because it Happened
Each year, our school celebrates Dr. Seuss Day, complete with a visit from The Cat in the Hat himself. Yeah, I know him. Don’t be a hater.
During this year’s visit a few weeks ago, I was chatting with The Cat and a friend from work. My friend mentioned her favorite quote, quite often attributed to Dr. Seuss:
“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”
Of course, you know where my mind went.
Just a few days ago in my Both/And Not Either/Or post, I talked about the unhelpfulness of saying to someone who has lost a loved one, “Just celebrate the time you had with them.” So it would naturally seem that my response would be to call BS on the “Don’t cry because it’s over” part of the Seuss quote.
That day in my office, I got a glimpse of a different perspective that may evolve for me in the months or years to come — not so much a literal interpretation of “Don’t cry because it’s over” that causes me to bristle and protest but more of an emphasis on “Smile because it happened.” I’m certain that Dr. Seuss’ intent was not to short circuit the grief process but more to point out the importance of being grateful for what we had.
I’ve heard from others who have walked this path before me that with time comes an ability to smile about sweet memories without feeling such an endless sense of emptiness and aching. I’m trusting it is so.
It’s not that I don’t smile when I remember Chandler. Sometimes just looking at his picture makes me smile. We often re-tell Chandler stories that make me laugh. Like when he was little and saw my dad who wasn’t circumcised going to the bathroom and later asked me, “How come Grandpa has an alien’s ding?” Or when we came home from the store, again when he was quite young, with a package of the sausage that’s shaped like an oblong circle and he announced to everyone, “We got a ring of ding.” I see a theme here.
Certainly I’m glad for the 25 Chandler years. But I don’t know that there will ever come a time when I do not cry because it’s over. My hope is that the smiling may someday outweigh the crying. Or maybe it will just become smiling through tears.
For today, if I were able to write my own version of the Seuss quote, it would read:
Cry because it’s over. It means you loved. And always remember to smile because it happened.
