I recently went to see The Odd Life of Timothy Green. I knew that it would make me cry. I knew that it would make me think of Zoe and how much I wanted to be a mom and a parent. But I wanted to feel the emotions and see the movie. I wanted to see just how much it would affect me.
So here is this couple that tries and tries to have a child and there is no hope of having one of their own. One night... for just one night they write down all the qualities that their kid would have... they put them in a box and bury them in the garden. That evening a storm comes and along with it a little boy that grows from the garden.
They are amazed. They are astonished. But they know that he is theirs. He possesses everything that is innately them. But he also shows them what it means to live. To love life. To soak up the sun and to actually possess the qualities that as a parent, you really want your child to have. So many of us say that we want to love unconditionally, yet when it becomes hard or affects real life, we reject unconditional for conditions. We say that we want our kids to be a certain way, but we end up showing them the short cuts in life instead of the slow and steady way.
This movie shows us that we are ready for more than we think that we are... the parents in this movie wanted their child to possess certain qualities and they ended up being things that were tough to have. The situations that we think we are not ever going to be prepared for are some of the things that make us the strongest.
In the end as Timothy fulfills each quality that his parents want him to have, he loses a leaf and he knows that he will be leaving them soon because his time with them was just to show them that they CAN be parents... even to a child that is not their own.
It did make me cry. It did make me sad. It did make me miss my Zoe and question why I didn't get to keep her. But it also made me want to make a list of all the qualities that I hoped that she would possess and plant them in a garden, wait for a storm and wake up to find a little girl covered in mud next to me in bed....
A friend of mine saw this movie and said she cried all over the place. She suggested taking tissues to the theater. I rarely get to go to the theater and wait for DVD so I can't wait for this one to come out.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it be awesome it dreams like that really did come true? I would bury my box in a heartbeat. But to lose her again, I'm not sure, but I think the time with her would be so much more precious to have and let her go, then to have not had it at all. :(
I've been wondering about this movie, if it would be a good idea to watch it. I am so afraid that it'll anger me, the absurdity of a child just blooming from your garden after being told I can't have children. Especially now that we lost Caleb. Maybe I'll consider watching it now. I jut think I'd be better off waiting to watch it in the privacy of my home. Just seeing children makes me cry, an entire theater worth might be a little much on top of the movie itself. Thanks for the review!
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