Movies evoke all kinds of emotional. The emotional I feel the most is regret. You
always hear folks says, “I regret nothing”, but with me, that’s not the
case.
I was just watching a movie called A little Bit of Heaven with Kate Hudson.
¾ of the way through the movie I had decided that this was an hour and 15
minutes I couldn’t get back, until the end. See the premise of the movie is
a women dying of cancer and she gets three wishes from God (played by
Whoopi Goldberg). She wishes for 1 million dollars and she wished to learn
how to fly—but she’s stuck on the third one. Kate Hudson character doesn’t
quite know what she wants the third wish to be, so she is sent back to
earth to find out. When her character finds out she’s terminally ill and
there is no hope, she begins this journey.
I began to sob uncontrollable when she and her mother had their heart to
heart moment. Her mother (played by Kathy Bates) had put up with her
attitude the whole movie, now the time had come for her to realize her
daughter was in fact dying. It made me think of my mother. A smart enough
women, funny, witty and addicted to crack cocaine my entire life. I started
to wonder, will I ever heal the wound that has been left by mother? Can I
ever truly forgive her for all she done? Do I want to forgive her?
Forgiveness is hard, being mad is easier.
In the movie the characters father was as she put it, “emotionally
constipated”, incapable of showing or giving love. In her climatic scene
with her on screen father she explains to him that he should know how to
fix there rift, and in common movie magic, he says the right thing and he
is forgiven for all past transgressions. Only of it were that easy.
My father, 30 years older than my mother, was physically, mentally
and emotional abusive. A hard man from Texas, he decided to use the rod to
get his point across. When I was a child he would call me ugly, black,
stupid and skinny. Doing wonders for my self-esteem you could imagine. Now
he’s dying. My father has never said sorry. He has never even acknowledged
the fact that he did anything wrong. I hated my father. Hated. Him. Now
that’s he’s dying I feel obligated to forgive him. I think he doesn’t
deserve me or my siblings forgiveness.
27 years of what some might call a hard life. I am lucky or blessed,
whatever you prefer. This movie moved me because it took her until her
death bed to forgive the people that hurt her the most. I don’t want
that to be me. Liberation from my nightmares and pain is what I seek. I
don’t think I’m strong enough. Not yet anyway.
