Welcome to this week's episode of Solace: Soul + Grief . I'm Candee Lucas . We're glad you're here . This podcast is sponsored by Catholic Cemeteries and the Diocese of San Jose .
The death of a loved one is a very difficult life transition and we hope we can answer some of your questions , help you find where God is moving in your life as you continue your grief journey , and remind you of the power of your faith and love for God . You're always welcome in our circle of healing , love and care .
Today I want to spend a little time talking about how grief is portrayed in cinema , how these movies over time become part of our social record of what grief looks like or should look like , and how oftentimes the only practice we have at grieving is through these portrayals that we see on screen , read about in books , in plays and various representations in
paintings , photographs etc . I recently saw a film called " Tj" , and the longer I've taken to ruminate on the themes of the film , the more moving I thought the story was . Essentially , it's a teenager dying of cancer , but more importantly it's about how her mother a single mother is coping with , or not coping with , the soon death of her child .
The mother's grief is so overwhelming that she is not emotionally available to her child , grieving her own death and grieving the emotional distance the mother has created .
Now , as most films on this topic , it doesn't really have a happy ending , so to speak , but it does have a resolution that speaks to me , in that the daughter makes it possible for the mother to accept her death . Not accept her death , but to be both present for her death and present for her daughter .
Many of you have heard me talk before about hospice , my time with hospice patients and how most of the time the family's not available in those last hours or days for one reason or another . Oftentimes they're far away and oftentimes they choose not to be there .
The manner of death , as we've discussed before , has a very profound effect on the grief afterwards , the grieving process , the public mourning , the rituals , the creation of a new relationship with that now dead person . A film you might be more familiar with on the topic of grieving and coming to terms , as it were , with death is " Terms of Endearment .
That starred Deborah Winger and Shirley MacLaine . I think it's at least 20 years old , maybe 30 by now , but most of you have probably seen it and I revisit it from time to time , although the emotions that movie brings forth for me are too close to the emotions I felt losing my own mother to cancer , so I don't watch it often .
Not like " Wonderful Life" or something like that .
We watch it often not like Wonderful Life or something like that , but these films can give us an insight to our feelings and I liked most about this current film , " fridTay , starring Julia Louis- Dreyfus , is it's all given in the perspective of the survivor and how she will learn to cope with the death of her only child .
In the film there's also a representation of death itself by a bird , the kind of bird that speaks by a bird , the kind of bird that speaks . And death speaks when it's necessary to clarify things for both the mother and the daughter who's dying .
At first this sounds like so much of a device and I heard an interview with Julia Louis- Dreyfus who talked about the very idea that this bird was part of the film gave her pause when she first agreed to do it , and I can't say that it works entirely dramatically . But I do appreciate the filmmaker and storyteller found a device like this to represent death .
At one point , after the daughter has died and the mother is alone with the bird , the mother asks the bird if there's a heaven , if there's an afterlife and if there's a God . The bird tells her that there's no God as humans perceive it , but the most important thing he tells the mom is that the afterlife , the daughter's afterlife , is in her .
The mother carries all the love and memories that the daughter made in her life . She carries all her hopes and dreams , all her smiles and tears in her heart . I like to think that's what we do here . We make places for those memories , we create ground that seeds of love can be planted in .
We ask God to strengthen us and carry us through the difficult days , and when we are at our lowest , we are reminded of that healing love that is ever a resource to us . That concludes another episode of Solace . A new one drops every Friday .
Please subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , amazon , or find us on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , amazon , or find us on Google . I'm Candee Lucas , your host , aftercare Coordinator , Chaplain and Spiritual Director at Catholic Cemeteries at Gate of Heaven in Los Altos , California . At Gate of Heaven in Los Altos , california .
Please contact us If you have questions or seek spiritual direction . Our contact information is in the show notes . Be gentle with yourselves , travel with God . Vaya con Dios .