Monday, January 23, 2012

Incredibly Moving




Yesterday was an incredibly moving day.  First, in church, we heard a General Contractor tell us, from the pulpit, how he and his family lost their business, their home and all of their investments in this terrible recession.  But now things are finally looking up.

I am hearing this latter story (things are finally looking up) from several sources these days.

Later Dave and I changed into our jeans and drove downtown to Lake Eola where we saw the mini traveling version of the Viet Nam Wall.  This is my second time to see a replica of the wall but I was still moved almost to tears as we traveled down the columns. 

From there we went to the movies.  We saw "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close."  I was expecting it to be a 9/11 movie but, to me, it was a story about a child with Asperger's and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrom. This incredibly well loved child with an incredibly active mind takes us on a remarkable journey through New York City.

The child, Oskar, after the death of his father in the twin towers, finds a mysterious key in his dad's closet and sets out to find the matching lock.

The reviewers haven't been kind to this movie but I was glued to my seat from beginning to end.  The boy's parents are played by Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock.  His mysterious companion is played by the great Max Von Syndow.  By the way, he's 82 years old and is still a magnificent actor that you can't take your eyes away from when he's on the screen.

At one point I thought about all of those thousands of dads who's names were on that Viet Nam Wall and then this child's dad, lost in a similar way. 

But, somehow,  as Oskar reminds us, we manage to carry on.


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