Cinematic Credibility

When I started this blog, I didn't know where it would go. I'd hoped it might help me process some emotional stuff around C's illness and my father's death in 2003.

Writing about C's illness last winter and spring was helpful for me. As we approach another anniversary of that horrible time, I feel less anxious about it. Less angry, more balanced. Either that, or I've just transferred all the anxiety to job-search stress. Distinctly possible.

But still, things come back about and around that issue for me.

A couple of weeks ago, we watched a movie called "The Safety of Objects" that we'd had on our NetFlix queue. I don't remember how we selected it to begin with. At any rate, the description of the movie on NetFlix, while accurate on one level, didn't really give a hint about the action that takes place in the movie. Basically, most of it takes place in the aftermath of a car accident that leaves a character profoundly disabled.

There is a scene late in the movie when the mother of the disabled character, played by Glenn Close, says this (the most complete quote I can find, but even this is paraphrased):

"If you are ever in a praying situation with Him: Be Specific! Include certain clauses. It's not enough to assume that if a person lives they'll be okay... Cause God has a wicked sense of humor. And even though he knows you mean more, he'll only give you exactly what you ask for."

I take issue with this. The entire movie lost credibility with me in that one speech.

I know it's only a movie and it was only said by a fictional character, and that every person and every situation is different, but as a mom who has been in the position of praying for her child's life, truly his life was all I wanted in those moments. There was no additional clause in my brain. It was his life. I was willing to take it in any form, so long as he was alive. The "but I meant" or the clause or however you want to say it might have come later, but in the moment of C's crisis, all I prayed for was his life.

I think the mother in the movie would have done the same.