My last post I talked about the movie PS I Love You. To be specific, I was really touched by the statement Daniel makes to Holly when he says “I’d like to be somebody’s Gerry.”
That got me thinking about things. I have spent a lot of time here talking about how we the readers are loving our partners. Brainstormed ideas on how we could put more effort into strengthening our relationships. Came up with ways we could do more for them. Taken responsibility for the shortcomings we feel exist. Explored ways we could feel more, love deeper, give more of ourselves.
I realized I haven’t done a very good job of exploring what we may want out of life. I haven’t been selfish enough here for us. I haven’t asked what we want to get out of our relationships. What is in it for us? We want to give more but is it wrong to want to get a little in return?
Daniels single statement changed my thinking on love. In that moment as I watched him say it and I heard the words I knew they hit me hard in a new place. And as I sat here today replaying them over and over and over I had an epiphany. I realized I was only working on half of the puzzle. Not only am I looking for a great love for ME, but I want to be a great love for HER. I know what I wanted FOR me. Now I know what I want FROM me.
Gerry writes a final letter to Holly before he dies. In that letter he is thanking her for their life together. He tells her how much she moved him, and changed him. How she made him a man by loving him. He says “Thank you for the honor of being my wife. I am a man with no regrets. How lucky I am, you made my life.”
Maybe it has been obvious to you but it wasn’t to me. Maybe it goes without saying that in our effort to have a great love we automatically are that for the other person. But having a great love isn’t the same as being a great love. I want to be able to write that letter to the woman I share my life with. But I want her to able to write it too! I want to be the man that moved a woman. That changed her. A man she felt honored to have as her husband. That left her with no regrets. That has her feeling lucky because I made her life. I want to be that.
Not only do I want to be Garrett from Message in a Bottle and be so utterly consumed with a woman’s love, but I want to know what it was like to be Catherine and have someone so utterly consumed by my love. I want to be someone’s everything. I want to have a woman love me so intensely that other men are jealous of me. And ask me how I do it. Long after Gerry was gone Holly couldn’t even imagine spending time with another man. Garrett didn’t even see the women around him because he was so in love with Catherine.
I want that for me. Ya I really do want to be somebody’s Gerry. But I also want be what Holly was to Gerry. What Catherine was to Garrett. I deserve to get as good as I give. Anything less is no longer acceptable.
brainstorminglife@yahoo.com
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Somebody's Gerry
I have recently seen some really good movies and I am in the process of reading all of Nicholas Sparks books. He wrote The Notebook, a Walk To Remember, Nights in Rodanthe to name a few. I am on page 106 of Message In A Bottle and it really has me thinking about some things.
I haven't seen that movie yet. I will wait until I finish reading the book. In the book Garrett Blake lost his wife Catherine in an accident and he writes her love letters that he puts in bottles and tosses into the ocean. You can tell by reading them that he doesn't just love this woman, he is crazy unconditionally absolutely IN LOVE with her. He adores her. It’s the kind of love that makes you ache when you are apart. Has you walking around smiling for what seems like no good reason at all. Has you looking at her and saying a silent Thank You to God for letting you have her.
One day a woman, Theresa, is walking on the beach while on vacation and she finds one of his bottles. Inside was one of the letters he had written to Catherine and it was so powerful that she was taken by it. She shares the letter with her boss, and her boss talks her into publishing it in the newspaper column she writes. She receives hundreds of responses as women beg for information on who this man that loves so deeply may be. Surly men don't really talk like this. Right? They are not capable of expressing their feelings so powerfully if they even have any.
One of Theresa’s readers has found a letter herself and contacts Theresa. It was just as wonderful and emotional and heartbreaking as the one she had. She does a little research and she finds a third letter. Theresa’s boss compels her to go and find the man whose amazing love letters to the woman he loves have moved her so much.
Ok now toss into the thought process the movie PS I Love You. It’s about a girl named Holly who is trying to cope with the death of her husband Gerry. As you watch how their relationship started and grew you can see how much she meant to him. They were lovers and playmates and best friends. He was her everything. As you can see it is another story of an amazing love lost.
In the movie Harry Connick Jr plays Daniel, a nice guy who meets Holly and is attracted to her. He is having lunch with her one day and he is trying to talk Holly into a relationship. She is not interested because she can tell he isn't the one. You see, Gerry wasn't just another man. He wasn't just someone she loved and said "Yes" to. To Holly he was a once in a lifetime love. The kind that doesn't just come along everyday. He was to her what Catherine was to Garrett.
Daniel is clearly upset about the idea that she is not responding to his desire to pursue a relationship. But he does understand. And you can see in his eyes that his hurt is not just a result of her rejection. It’s much deeper than that. He listened to her talk about her love for Gerry and he sadly states “I’d like to be somebody’s Gerry”
There it is.
I said all that so I myself could say “I’d like to be somebody’s Gerry.”
brainstorminglife@yahoo.com
I haven't seen that movie yet. I will wait until I finish reading the book. In the book Garrett Blake lost his wife Catherine in an accident and he writes her love letters that he puts in bottles and tosses into the ocean. You can tell by reading them that he doesn't just love this woman, he is crazy unconditionally absolutely IN LOVE with her. He adores her. It’s the kind of love that makes you ache when you are apart. Has you walking around smiling for what seems like no good reason at all. Has you looking at her and saying a silent Thank You to God for letting you have her.
One day a woman, Theresa, is walking on the beach while on vacation and she finds one of his bottles. Inside was one of the letters he had written to Catherine and it was so powerful that she was taken by it. She shares the letter with her boss, and her boss talks her into publishing it in the newspaper column she writes. She receives hundreds of responses as women beg for information on who this man that loves so deeply may be. Surly men don't really talk like this. Right? They are not capable of expressing their feelings so powerfully if they even have any.
One of Theresa’s readers has found a letter herself and contacts Theresa. It was just as wonderful and emotional and heartbreaking as the one she had. She does a little research and she finds a third letter. Theresa’s boss compels her to go and find the man whose amazing love letters to the woman he loves have moved her so much.
Ok now toss into the thought process the movie PS I Love You. It’s about a girl named Holly who is trying to cope with the death of her husband Gerry. As you watch how their relationship started and grew you can see how much she meant to him. They were lovers and playmates and best friends. He was her everything. As you can see it is another story of an amazing love lost.
In the movie Harry Connick Jr plays Daniel, a nice guy who meets Holly and is attracted to her. He is having lunch with her one day and he is trying to talk Holly into a relationship. She is not interested because she can tell he isn't the one. You see, Gerry wasn't just another man. He wasn't just someone she loved and said "Yes" to. To Holly he was a once in a lifetime love. The kind that doesn't just come along everyday. He was to her what Catherine was to Garrett.
Daniel is clearly upset about the idea that she is not responding to his desire to pursue a relationship. But he does understand. And you can see in his eyes that his hurt is not just a result of her rejection. It’s much deeper than that. He listened to her talk about her love for Gerry and he sadly states “I’d like to be somebody’s Gerry”
There it is.
I said all that so I myself could say “I’d like to be somebody’s Gerry.”
brainstorminglife@yahoo.com
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