Originally Posted 8-26-12 to Facebook
Most of the time it hits me when I'm listening to a particular song, or reading a particular story. And perhaps you've read my posts about my brother. They are numerous. This time, it was one particular line couched in the setup of an entire movie.
This evening I watched 50/50. An at times funny movie. A melancholy movie. My favorite kind I've come to realize. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a 27 year old man who finds out he has cancer and is forced to deal with that. In general movie fashion, he has his difficult moments and then changes his life for the better. It's a movie that allows the audience to feel good. To feel connected to the positive things in this world; overcoming adversity, connecting in family and life's loves, etc. The movie did what it needed to do. It not only solidified my respect for JGL, but also confirmed a growing appreciation and respect for Anna Kendrick. She's much to achieve as an actor, but she is absolutely a rising young star, and a cutie.
JGL's character is dealing with cancer and they create a wonderful sense of numbness, of dealing with a certain sense of dumbfounded awe at one's own situation. He's sad, angry, hurt, afraid and most of all muscling through as all humans often do in terrible times of their life. He braves most of this with a grim expression and tries to suffer and find humor in the day to day. But when it comes down to it, he's scared.
They touch on this indirectly with an end-scene shot here or a montage there, but it's never brought to the forefront until one moment when he's about to go into surgery. The anesthesiologist has given him the drugs that will take him under so he can go into surgery. His mom and dad are nearby and he begins to freakout. Things are moving fast.
He's spent so long trying to simply muscle through and in this one scene he's about to lose it. What all of it means has finally hit him. He's about to go under and he says something trying to check and recheck what the anesthesiologist has just said. But the line that hit me hard is directed to his mother, who he has had a hard time connecting with. “You're going to make sure I wake up?”
A fearful command and question.
This hit me hard.
When I was a sophomore in college, my right lung collapsed. I was in the house I shared with 3 other house-mates, alone, just back from winter vacation, none of the others would arrive for a couple days. I had gotten back from work and was feeling feverish, had a bit of a cough. I went to bed hoping I'd simply feel better. Late in the night, my fever had broken and I had soaked my sheets with sweat. Later that morning I got up to go the bathroom and felt a terrible pain in the right side of my chest. A surprising pain. I thought perhaps it was merely some horrid chest congestion. A simple illness I could muscle through. I tried to sleep on my stomach with pillows under each shoulder to keep me propped up. It didn't work.
Six hours later I called my dad to make sure I was still covered under his insurance and I was. I then called my friend Eric who a couple hours later was able to take me to the clinic. Once at the clinic they did some tests and then said they needed to X-Ray. This was the first moment I grew scared. Something wasn't right. We did the X-Rays and when the Dr. came back with the results the first thing he said was, “We have called an ambulance.” He then began to explain that my right lung had collapsed.
The worst thing that had ever happened to me was a broken finger when I was like 8. And as they wheeled me out on a gurney to the ambulance and my friends were left wondering what the hell was going on, I simply tried to ignore what was happening, to not engage with the reality of the situation.
I was transported to a hospital E.R. And they cut into the side of my chest to insert a tube to free up the pressure around my lung. I then spent a week in the hospital before the realized they needed to do surgery.
The line from the movie hit me hard, because I hadn't realized until then just how scared I really was. I had not engaged with the reality so well that I had blocked that fear out. And it hit me again. The sentiment that JGL shared in that one line managed to sum up the sheer weight of my fear. I didn't know enough then to not fear that I might not wake up again. And for this to catch me now was surprising, but good...
I feel intensely grateful to those who stood by my side. They know who they are, but I'm not sure they know how indebted I am to them.
Mostly I feel some shame. My family, my dearest friends and the person I love most in the world were there for me. They stood by my side when I couldn't mutter anything more than ridiculous statements about my hallucinations from the pain medicine. I have not been there for them as often as I should have been. I've never been as strong as they were. I have not stood by their sides when they were suffering, the way they did for me in my most fearful moments.
Fortunately, 50/50 and many other movies like it have an excellent lesson to be learned. There may be opportunities to change your life for the better. It'd be a good idea to take them.
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