The Young Widow - What Dreams may Come

I saw this movie when it first came out and I loved it. It stuck with me. When my husband died more than 8 months ago, I knew that I wanted to watch it again. I had just been waiting until I was strong enough. Well, I saw it tonight and I am balling my eyes out as I type this out. Needless to say that I am not sure if I was in fact strong enough. Tears are not a sign a weakness anyway. Maybe I am just emotional these days, it's been a hard week after all but that may be another hub entirely.

I saw The Vow two days ago and I didn't do so well either. Although it was for totally different reasons. These are not the first lovey 'chick flicks' I have been able to watch. In all this time, I have been able to watch one other and that was 50 First Dates. I only watch them alone. I know that this may sound weird considering I am so open here with my thoughts but I am pretty private about the emotion thing. I have trained myself to be solid in public for most of my life and now that I am all grown up, it is really the only way I know how to be. I know, a therapist could probably have a field day with that. I may be biased but I don't see any problems.

I do really well with romantic comedies with or without guests. Because I did them alone, I know what I can and can't handle in groups. I think that is a good thing.

I saw this one a couple of months ago. I was thinking of my husband, which is common, and I remembered the reason that he showed me the movie. The movie was a promise to me. :)
We used to talk a lot about getting old together. Because of the memory problems that I have now, I used to worry (and still worry) about not having much memory left as an old woman. My definition of worry is way different than most. I don't really do the whole stress over things that I can't change thing. I just thought about it sometimes. My husband was my best friend so I talked to him about anything. I would joke about him locking me up in some institution and that I wanted to hire someone, now, while I knew what I was doing to make sure that he didn't do that. He would joke back and say 'why on earth would I lock you up in an institution when I could lock you up at home for free?' Yes, he was a smart one.

Anyway, he showed me the movie to tell me that this was his plan for me and for us. He said it would work perfectly since he was an early bird and I hibernated like a bear. It would be easy for him to set up pictures and movies for me to great the day with. Watching this movie was a happy thing for me. I think I did that weird laugh while tearing thing that I do often but it was a happy thing.

The Vow shook me up because it brought back the mild fear of losing memories. So I cried at the realization that there are already so many of our memories that I am not able to recall. The story was beautiful even tho I was getting pretty upset at the girl for not remembering him and making some of her choices. This movie actually helped me a little in that it got me to attempt to journal our story. I want to have a written record of the stories that I have not lost yet. I am even planning on writing down the things that I am known for keeping off paper. Like I said, as much as it seems that I give, there is a lot that I keep to myself. So far, I only have the meeting and first date and there are plenty of holes in the story but I have it written to remind an old woman about herself, should it be in God's plan to let me experience old age. I hope that I do get the chance. I would love to have an entire head of gray hair, one of my favorite characters is Storm after all. I want to embarrass young people. I can't wait to tell some young person that I have been skinny, wrinkle free, attractive, and with minimal hair and none of those things were what brought me happiness, although advertisements promise it.

This movie is different. It is both uplifting and extremely difficult to watch. I think everyone who loses a loved one gets lost in wondering if they can hear us or see us. I know that I wondered where he was and what it was like so much so that I was begging for confirmation of it in prayers. I wanted some kind of sign that what I believed was truth. The problem is that with this kind of thought comes the inevitable doubt...what if it is not the truth. This is where faith comes in. People have this misconception about faith. They walk around thinking that faith comes without battle, without doubt, and without dedication. To say that I have faith does not mean that my knuckles are not scraped bare from hitting the bottom. I think that faith is harder than doubt. To me it is really easy to say that it probably doesn't work like that when you hit the bottom. You hit hard, you are bruised, but then you pitch a tent, the bruises leave and you become hardened to it. I think it is harder to hit bottom, insist that you will stand by your faith when you are bruised, and then claw your way up. You constantly slip down, the bruises take longer to heal, and sometimes more pain comes as some fingernails rip back from climbing. This movie brings a lot of that back. It can be difficult to watch but then there is hope in the message that things do not stop existing simply because we can not see them.