In A Shadow

I'll admit I usually like the happy endings. As a matter of fact I'll avoid a movie if it seems like it's going to end sadly. I walk out of movies feeling completely let down when the hero or heroine dies and I wasn't expecting it. After all I go to the movies to be entertained. Life is hard enough without paying to see additional sadness.

Maybe it's supposed to make us feel better about lives...when we see characters suffer on film. I don't know. In any event, I had been waiting to see "My Sister's Keeper" until I had read that book. I bought the book and thought I'd let my niece read it first, since she is sometimes a quicker reader than I and she has the summer off, so she has plenty of reading time.

She didn't get it read and lost the book, so I went to the movie not sure what to expect (aside from the information on the trailer). I knew it was going to be sad and a tear-jerker. What I didn't realize is that it was going to hit so close to home.

What dawned on me during this movie is that having a little sister who has struggled with her health her entire life...literally...has left me feeling that my life is less important because I am healthy. The realization hit my heart like a knife.

Don't be alarmed, my realization has nothing to do with the movie's plot.

I have never been one to ask for much of anything and i don't regret this as I became fairly independent at a young age. I have been reminded that I didn't receive much because I didn't ask and that memory stings a bit in light of a sibling who did ask...and did receive.

I also realized that a sibling who is ill requires more help...but it doesn't change what's happening to everyone else. I remember birthdays and holidays overshadowed by illness. I remember parents running off to be with a sick sibling regardless of what is going on in my own life (albeit less physically challenging). It's felt at time as though she is the only one that matters.

I talked to my brother about it and he doesn't feel this way at all, so perhaps it's my own journey to self-realization I'm experiencing. Whatever it is...I hope it's worthwhile at the end because it's painful in the interim...feeling like I'm living in a shadow.