Made You Cry

Kate asked me, the other day, to name three movies that made me cry.  Immediately, I knew which three always make me cry, every time I see them - even if it's the 17th time.  They are Kolya, Shadowlands, and Corrina, Corrina.  There is one part in each of these films that, even though I know it's coming, the tears well and spill.  What I didn't realize was that each part, of each film, deals with the crack in a child's otherwise stoic grief.

This picture is me at 6-9 months (I know, the hair - and the chins!).  I don't think I was suffering any major grief - just didn't want to pose for this photo.  But, yet, I did pose.
I am pulled to my knees at the strength of children to persevere - even in grief stricken circumstances.  It is especially the attempts to deal with their emotions, the creative inventions, that move me to tears. 

In Corrina, Corrina, it is the part when Molly lays her mother's dress out on the grass, lies down next to it and slides her hand into the dress pocket.  In Kolya, it's when Kolya uses the shower sprayer, while having his bath, as a telephone to talk to his grandmother, who has just died.  And in Shadowlands, it is the shared grief of Joy's son, Douglas, and the adult C.S. Lewis.

Just after Kate turned four, I traveled with Mark overseas on a business trip.  We dropped Kate and John at my parents, where they would stay, and were getting ready to leave.  Kate sat on the steps, hugging her knees, with her eyes closed tightly.  She said good-bye to me but wouldn't open her eyes, saying that if she saw me, she would cry and she was trying to be brave.   (Hard to enjoy my trip a lot after that!)

They are so precious!

On a happier note...here is my kitchen tree in its sassy adolescent green: