Grace is Gone

It's never easy,

Even if they say that it'll pass in time,

Who are they to say that it'll pass when it's not them who's suffering,

Stop pretending as if that you can feel the pain,

Perhaps that's anger speaking,

Perhaps that it's not your fault,

Loss can be at times irrational,

Can someone who's experience loss be rational?

How can someone else feel what you feel?

This pain of a part of your soul that's being ripped out viciously,

Unwilling, Unexpectedly,

This sense of unfairness of why should this person go,

Crippled, it's a wonder how we can ever move on,

But time goes on,

We weep and we grieve,

The living must keep on living,

Because by living we honor the past,

By living, we keep the memories close,

We are limited in what we can do,

But we alive by staying strong,

We may choose to say that the end has come,

Or that it's called a passing because they're in a better place,

In the end, their memories is eternal should we choose to let them continue living in our memories.

A part of them continues as a part of us,

Growing into who we are today.

~Dedicated to those who had passed and those still living~

            Death is never easily accepted. Above all, death is irrational. Different people may deal with death differently but death is rarely painless. As was illustrated by Stanley Phillips (John Cussack) whose wife had recently passed away in combat while serving the military in Iraq. Stanley is left with the fact that he have to break the news to his two daughters. Finding difficulty with dealing with his wife’s death and telling his daughters, he did the next thing that he only knew how; bringing what is left of his family to the last place that they had their happiest memories. Enchanted Garden.

Grief

            Throughout the film, we are shown the transition of how Stanley cope with the loss of his wife. Starting from the state of disbelief or denial, he withdrew into himself. Facing with the reality of his wife’s passing, he tried to face his empty home that his wife will no longer return to.This is consistent with Kübler-Ross’s model on the Five stages of grief. Stanley started with denial when he first heard of his wife’s passing. Even to the point of not even able or wanting to tell his daughters that their mother has passed. Choosing instead to take them to Enchanted Garden. On a whim. In the beginning stage of his grief, all Stanley wanted to do was to just get away from where he is with his daughters. Even the diner that the family usually goes to holds too much painful memories for him. He desperately needs to get away from everything. His job, his house, his town, his friends, in other words; he needs to leave his current life at the moment.

             Throughout the journey to Enchanted Garden, we see Stanley moving from Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and eventually Acceptance. Not necessarily in that order. However, it is quite evident that after they left the town that they were in; Stanley was moving between anger, bargaining and depression. It started with a phone call to their house phone. As the phone message recorder is of his late wife, Grace. He spoke as if he’s literally talking to her on the phone. This act can be seen as a form of bargaining. Stanley succumb to his depression early on when he finally has time to be by himself and in private. Crying and curling up in bed at his mother’s house. His anger comes during the interaction with his brother, John. It is easily misinterpreted that Stanley is generally hostile towards his brother who have differing political views. As was seen when they (including the daughters) were sitting down at dining table. When John found out about and confronted Stanley about Grace’s(wife) passing, Stanley lashes out aggressively and pins John to the door but eventually breaking down and asking John to keep it a secret from his daughters. In a way, this can be seen as the first clues or steps to Stanley moving towards accepting the death of his wife.

            As they move along their journey to Enchanted Garden, Stanley moves from being somewhat detached from his daughters to eventually reconnecting with them again. Which was probably brought on by the fact that he found Heidi missing from the motel room one night and caught her trying out smoking. Discovering that Heidi has not been able to sleep much ever since Grace was dispatched to Iraq. He asked her to wake him up and talk to him every time she was not able to sleep by trying to break the ice by smoking with her. This is interesting in a sense that the first step in moving toward his acceptance of his wife’s passing was to reconnect with Heidi. Who as shown at the beginning, seemed to be at odds with her father. Even Dawn was no exception, as he connected with her after he relented to them getting their ears pierced. Eventually, after a day’s worth of fun at Enchanted Garden; he finally broke the news of Grace’s passing to his daughters. The final stage of acceptance.