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Lately it seems that going to the movies is a
lesson in disappointment. No matter how enticing
the previews look, once you're in the theater, popcorn
in hand, you sigh with disgust at yet another waste of
time and the price of a ticket.
I didn't anticipate too much while waiting for the
feature film to begin. I had heard The Notebook
was a good love story so I went, even though my
philosophy is kind of like -- If you've seen one love
story you've seen them all.
I was in for quite a surprise. The notebook is a
love story whose end starts at the beginning. A
gray haired couple sharing a late in life friendship
at a convalescence center. It is evident, early on,
that the elderly gentleman is quite committed to
befriending his female companion.
Throughout the movie the man reads the woman
excerpts from a book. As he reads, flashbacks take us
back to a time when two young people fell madly in
love, only to be separated by distance when the girl's
family moves away.
Each and every day, without fail, the kindly old
gentleman sits with this same, confused, woman
continuing on with the saga of the two young lovers
in his story book.
Hi words bring us back in time as we find ourselves
cheering them on when they eventually find their
way back to one another against all odds.
The movie had me captivated as I, at first, thought
this was a friendship blossoming into golden love
between a couple living out their golden years in the
confines of a convalescence center.
Then came the romantic revelation -- the woman has
Alzheimer's and her 'friend' is really her loyal,
loving husband who chooses to live with her at the
home. The story book he reads from is actually the
history book of their lives, and his faithful reading
is done only for the reward of briefly sparking her
memory.
Occasionally he succeeds but only for a few
fleeting moments would she come back, to the
present, to share a memory.
This movie definitely had a message for us mid-life
travelers. As gray-haired children of aging
parents, we sometimes find ourselves sandwiched
between our own children who need us and geriatric
parents who need us even more.
I sat in the theater rethinking the semantics of
geriatric love, especially since my journey to this
destination is not all that far away for me. I
was thinking how love, like time, is ageless and its
meaning is as powerful when you're 80 as when you're
18.
Isn't it comforting to know that, with love,
nothing is ever lost that cannot be found, and as this
movie shows--even if it is for only a moment in time.
I won't tell you the ending since you may want to
check out this endearing love story for yourself.
?© 2004 Kathy Whirity
Kathy Whirity lives in
Chicago where she shares her life and love with her
husband,Bill, of 28 years, their two daughters, Jaime
and Katie, and two rambunctious retrievers, Holly and
Hannah.
Kathy is a family life
columnist for two area newspapers.
For more of Kathy's
writings you may visit her web page: KATHY'S MUSINGS
FROM THE HEART http://www.heartwarmers4u.com/members?kathyw |
