A Walk To Remember

Caught this movie on the telly yesterday night. This is one of two Nicholas Sparks' books I know that made its way to the silver screen (the other being "The Notebook"). With Mandy Moore in the lead, one may accuse me of being teeny-booperish - but I do enjoy the movie nonetheless.

It is a high-school love story between the school's prankster (Landon) and the reverend's daughter suffering from terminal leukemia (Jamie). She died within the summer. As Jamie is hospitalized, Landon fulfills various wishes on Jamie's list, such as building her a telescope so she can see a comet. Through this process, Landon and Jamie learn more about the nature of love. The movie ends with Jamie's death, but only after the couple are married in the same chapel as was Jamie's deceased mother, the event that topped Jamie's wish list. Landon himself becomes a better person through Jamie's memory, achieving the goals that he set out to do, like she did.

Four years later when Landon visits Jamie's father as an aspiring medical student, he tells him that he is sorry he could not complete all of Jamie's wishes as he couldn't show her "the miracle" she wanted to see before dying. Her father then says, "She did. It was you."

I was told by a friend that such beautiful love stories does not exist in real life. But I think that such stories gives us inspiration to make the remaining of our lifes as beautiful as it should be.

In movies, we tend to be able to say everything that we wanted to say and do all the things that we wanted to do before death, but in real life, that is almost an impossibility for most of us. It is always a case of being slightly too late.

But precisely because movies reflects life, it should provide us a lesson to hasten to say and do all that we should say and do before it becomes "slightly too late". All the "there are so many things I wanted to say to you" should be said now. If we treasure our friends, if we love our families, if we value companionships - then I say: we need to convey that now to our friends or to our family members or to our companions.

In this journey of life, we cannot be sure where it will lead us. We may or we may not be blessed with those profound feelings or companionships in the next day or the next week. We should therefore seek for closure as soon and as often as is required: hence for example, tell our friends how you appreciate and treasure their friendships. Tell them now.

Another thing that sets me thinking: how would I live the remaining of my life if I knew that I was suffering from leukemia and will soon expire to the next world? Would I have attained the state of "tranquility" to embrace that blessing? Or as Jamie said when she told Landon of her sickness: "I don't want to find a reason to blame God".

How would you live your life, if you knew?

Do drop me a note.