Saturday, April 05, 2008

Watching E.T.

Last night, Kate and I made some popcorn and watched E.T. for the first time in at least 20 years. It's amazing how different it was to watch it as a thinking, questioning adult -- seeing all the allegorical stuff and being very "intellectual" about everything -- versus as a child watching for sheer entertainment. About halfway through the movie, I realized that I wasn't deeply invested in it; I was pretty much analyzing the movie from afar, as a remote observer.

But like all classics, what makes them classics is their ability to reach audiences on a very deep, meaningful level. Classics hit on enduring themes: betrayal, loss of innocence, reaching common humanity, etc. As a somewhat emotional person and the father of a child with special needs, I tend to tear up in movies more than the average Joe. Little things tend to trigger some emotional response, and often I can't say why. With E.T., the reason was clear.

It happened when E.T. is dying and Drew Barrymore's character, Gertie, is shown standing alone watching the doctors rush all around E.T. trying to save his life. My wife and I had commented earlier in the movie how much McRae, our 3-year-old, looks like Drew Barrymore's character, and I guess with that and the scare we had back in January with Roxie in the back of my head, I just started bawling. I don't mean some wet-eyed, sniffing cry ... it was an all out meltdown. I completely lost control. Just when I'd think I could stop, something else would occur in the movie that really hit home. I was immediately and fully invested in the movie, but on some parallel, personal level.

I wasn't just seeing the parallels between the movie and our life ... in my mind, the scenes I was watching were happening to our family: Gertie was McRae and Roxie was E.T. To me, Gertie watching E.T. being worked on by the doctors was Roxie lying on the floor of our foyer being tended to by paramedics that morning. The doctors surrounding E.T. were the same as the doctors surrounding Roxie in the E.R. trying to stop her seizures and then again in the Pediatric ICU trying to get her to breathe on her own while Kate and I stood by helplessly. E.T. is an alien, misunderstood, and cannot communicate in the typical way humans do. Roxie is a very different child and has alternative communication techniques. And on and on. The similarities were so exact and so many of them were happening at once ... so I lost it.

I think a lot of parents of medically-fragile, special needs kids would have the same reaction. We fret over whether we are doing everything we can to help them live and thrive. We dwell on whether we are helping their siblings understand and cope and be strong. We worry about the unknown futures for our families. And we grieve, whether we realize it or not.

And sometimes it comes out in the middle of a movie when we least expect it.

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