Sometimes a Big Fish

Zack had called me minutes after leaving the theatre… “Dad, I just saw a film that you have to see: The Big Fish… see it with someone, maybe Alan & Lynn… but it’s a movie you should really see.”

Zack has been pointing me in directions for sometime. His early referrals: The Simpsons, Pinky and the Brain, The Goodfeathers, In Living Color, and his monumental recommendation of Calvin and Hobbs — winners all. And recently he plucked a Rolling Stone from the news stand — an issue dedicated to the ordering of the top 500 albums of all time. That issue and Zack’s listing of his 10 Best Albums have been a springboard for a delightful correspondence.

It is such a joy to share a love of music with him. It felt so good to re-visit the music from my earlier times “when the tide was high and the grass green.”

Oh yes, hard not to smile.

I have come to trust Zack’s instinct on stuff. It really is a pleasure. I might not like everything he enjoys, and sometimes I don’t have the patience to explore the unfamiliar. I slept thru his endorsement of The Big Lebowski, only to fall madly in love with it the second go ‘round when I kept my eyes open. It makes my Top 25 Film List… along with Pulp Fiction, also a “spot on” recommendation from him.

But The Big Fish received an additional boost, as well. Alan and Lynn had seen it, too… and they, too, said that it was a movie I should see… it would be my type of film.

That’s impressive. Not that the movie was going to be a great film (it was in fact snubbed at the Oscars); but that it was a film for me to see… sort of a “Movie Rx”.

It took me a couple of weeks and a snow day to organize a companion. Suzy and I watched the movie at a 4:00PM matinee @ $5.75. Not a bad deal.

As soon as we left the theatre, I returned the favour to Zack — I called him. “Just saw The Big Fish, great recommendation Zack… thanks a lot for thinking of me.”

He asks, “Did you get weepy at the end?”

And I reply, “Zack, it didn’t take me ’til the end to get weepy… I was pretty well a wreck 15 minutes into it.”

I guess it just hit me in unexpected ways.

I am not bothered about getting “weepy” at things. Although what moves me might be different then what moves the next person. Zack, Beth and I recently saw the Man of La Mancha. And there is a scene at the end when Quixote rises from his dying bed to join Aldonza (Dulcinea) and Sancho in a reprise of “I, Don Quixote” — Zack and I choked at the same time.

We may not respond to everything in the same ways — but I see in all my children that they are “feeling” people. They respond to life — they breathe it. Sometimes it can cause immeasurable pain; but the happiness and warmth can take your breath away.

As a footnote to this tale, “Thank you Mr. Hirata”, who in the 7th Grade taught me to experience life thru what I saw, tasted, heard, smelled and felt.

But in truth, Mr. Hirata only put a definition to what was already stirring inside me. From my earliest memories, it was my father who would tell a story at the dinner table… and I was able to draw a mental image of that story with the finest of brushes, down to its tiniest detail… I saw it.

And so to The Big Fish, a clever film, a “Forest Gump” fantasy romp; but ultimately it’s a story of a father and a son. About what is real, and what is not — and how even in what was not real — there was a portion that was. And there was an estrangement as well (and that piece hurt me in an unanticipated manner), and a reconciliation & final understanding. Very good.

Yes, there were parts to relate to. A self centered father who puts himself in exile with his son over a matter of hubris. No it wasn’t an exact parallel to my family. But it hurt painfully to be reminded about the estrangement between Dad and Lynn, and, how unlike in the film, Dad would leave before reconciliation with Lynn could be achieved.

So yes, Zack, I got weepy during the film… early on when I saw the son calling his father out for being a self centered SOB on his wedding day. And I smiled during the patchwork quilt story of Ed Bloom’s adventures… I was moved again by Ed Bloom’s conversation from his sick bed, and wept again during the “final story telling.”

And maybe there were more tears at the end because it bore too close a resemblance to how I have always seen my “final story” — a story that takes me a cross a vast expanse of sea at warp speed, thru the brightest of skies, to reach a land where everyone who I had ever known would be — and we would see each other to our own mind’s eye. And I have called that place Heaven.

There are those days when I yearn to take that trip. To be at Rest. But today is not one of them. No, today I am too excited about Zack making a good call… to happy to learn something from one of my children… and I learn from each of them. That Zack, Shaina & Suzy think of me, make suggestions, push me to see things, hear things, taste things, smell and feel things… I find it all supremely satisfying.

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