Movies and Genuine Grief: What I've Learned

I reached over to Emily in the seat next to mine and held her hand while the house lights came on and the credits rolled. We sat in silence at the end of a row in a packed theater continuing to look straight ahead watching the screen through the spaces between the heads of people who stood and made their way out of the theater. When the credits stopped, we turned towards each other and said something about the film's deep effect on us. As we finally rose and put on our coats, a new wave of sadness hit me and I wept openly as I stood and grieved hugging Emily.

There are some movies I should not see alone. Gran Torino is one of them. I saw it last night with Emily.

Not watching certain movies alone isn't something I understood about myself back in October, 2003. It was just a day after my grandmother's death. I am alone. My girlfriend, D., is in New Orleans on a vacation with friends. I have just come from a matinee showing of The Magdalene Sisters. I am not alright. Anger is seething through my veins at the injustices I saw against young women depicted in the movie. I feel evil rise up inside me and I feel so very much alone.

Desperately, I call D. She is unable to soothe me and I become angrier and make demands and accusations against her until she hangs up. I remember looking at my contorted angry face in the mirror during one of those calls to her. I was utterly under the control of my emotions in those moments and my behavior was causing real damage to our relationship and worsening my condition. I stayed mad at her right up to the moment I picked her up at the train station. In my self righteous mind, she was "in trouble" and I couldn't wait to unload my verbal ammunition against her face-to-face and I sure did after a dose of punishing silence.

I am now able to see, after my response to watching Gran Torino last night, how in 2003 I had repressed my grief at my grandmother's loss and at what I was watching on the big screen (the movie was based on true events) and allowed it to turn into anger squeezed out against a loved one. I became a victim of my own anger and then a perpetrator of anger against another.

Last night, when I was utterly caught off guard by the rape (not shown on-screen) of one of the main characters, I felt the sadness well up in me and I let it come. I was able to embrace it (knowing it was my only healthy response) instead of denying it and pushing it down. Unexpressed sadness can turn into anger that can turn me into a victim who can then turn against others.

My grief is real. I care about the lives of all of the characters in the film. I am very aware that rape is used as a tool against women (and sometimes men) in wars raging all over the world and in homes across the country. As a woman, I know the fear of rape.

And so I grieve when a woman is raped, even if it's a woman in a film. If I don't grieve when these real feelings come up inside me, I can't continue to love in my every day life. Love is the only antidote to violence. I must live this belief of mine.

When Emily and I returned home from the theater, I put my arms around her again and we hugged for a long, long time in grief, understanding, healing and love.