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On Film, Faith, and Upper Room Books
This past summer I went to see Letters to Juliet, starring Amanda Seyfried and Vanessa Redgrave. I didn’t expect a lot of spiritual meaning from what I thought would be a nice, light “chick flick.”
Set in Verona, Italy, the film revolves around letters from lovelorn women written to Juliet Capulet of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. A small group of Italian women write letters back to each woman who leaves a message at Juliet’s wall. In the course of gathering these notes one day, Sophie, a young American woman visiting Verona, finds a long-lost note, written in 1957.
Enter Vanessa Redgrave as Clare, an older English woman who left the Italian love of her life when she was a teenager visiting Italy decades ago. Beautiful 73-year-old Redgrave, with her piercing blue eyes and soft silver hair, dares to return to Italy with her grandson to search for that man whom she loved so many years ago.
A good start to a mushy chick flick, right? The romantic hillsides and streets of Verona provide a perfect backdrop to a romantic movie; but I found more than a pleasant afternoon escape here.
The scene that spoke to me so powerfully was when young Sophie, deeply upset by the abrupt remembrance of the loss of her mother when she was a young girl, is getting ready for bed, brushing her hair. Clare comes into her room to see how she’s doing and offers to brush her hair. As she brushes Sophie’s long, blonde locks, Sophie closes her eyes, receiving the gentle care from this older woman who has become a kind of mother to her. Adding to the power of the scene is the sense that young Sophie plays as important a role for Clare as Clare does for Sophie.
So, what does this have to do with Upper Room Books?
Last year we published No Act of Love Is Ever Wasted: The Spirituality of Caring for Persons with Dementia. Among the many amazing accounts of mutual spiritual care-giving that Richard Morgan and Jane Thibault write about in this book, my favorite is Thibault’s account of the “quick visits” she paid to her mother-in-law, who suffered from an advanced dementia and could neither hear nor see. Thibault would arrive each day, stressed from her day’s events, pick up a brush, and start brushing the woman’s hair.
As Jane Thibault slowly brushed her mother-in-law’s hair, both of them relaxed and communicated love on a far deeper level than words could convey. There was a mutual giving of care in this relationship. Though the situation was very different in the movie, the act of love through a simple physical gesture was just as meaningful in the intergenerational relationship of two people.
If you have a relationship with someone who has dementia, the Morgan/Thibault book is an oasis in the desert of questions about how to love and relate to your friend or relative with dementia.
Back to the movie . . . does Clare find her long-lost love? Does Sophie’s handsome latino fiancé make a big mistake by leaving Sophie alone to travel with Clare and Clare’s grandson? Does Sophie fall for Clare’s grandson? Ah . . . all the makings of a satisfying romance. You’ll need to see the movie (now available on DVD) for the answers to these momentous questions!
Are you part of the "sandwich generation" -- caring for your own children and/or young people at your church and for an aging parent? What simple act of love has deepened an intergenerational relationship in your life?