Grief is a part of life. There is no avoiding it, although we may try at times. To avoid grief and hurt is to avoid all other human contact and live a life that is devoid of relationships, hardly the life to which God calls us. But we all deal with our grief in different ways. Some of us get the idea, after losing someone, that if we stop grieving, we have somehow begun to forget the person who has died. We don’t allow ourselves to heal, thinking that if healing takes place, the wound won’t be a reminder of that person, and reminders are all that we have left.
“In America” is the story of the Sullivan family, Johnny, Sarah, Christy, and Ariel. They are an Irish family that has immigrated to the United States through Canada with the premise of starting a new life. Of course, in this “land of opportunity,” where would one go for a new start but New York City. As the family drives through Manhattan in their station wagon we hear The Lovin’ Spoonful singing “Do You Believe in Magic?” a perfect segue and introduction to this film and the “magic” that is necessary to overcome one’s grief.
The story is told through the eyes of Christy, probably about 8 or 9, as she carries around her video camera, documenting the major events that she and her family experience on this adventure. In many ways, it seems like an homage to films like “To Kill A Mockingbird” where the innocence of childhood was used to tackle a difficult life-subject. Christy is constantly holding her camcorder and filming, something her little sister eventually laments as she tells her family that she has no one to play with and Christy tells all her secrets to her camera.
In the midst of the trials of job-hunting and acclimating to new surroundings, Johnny and Sarah take advantage of a stormy night and send the girls to the ice cream parlor, appropriately called “Heaven,” while they share some intimate moments together. Out of these moments, Sarah conceives a child. As Johnny Sullivan struggles to find work in Manhattan, the couple struggles through the process of getting their feet underneath them. The apartment building that the family lives in is hardly posh as they live among junkies and other miscreants of society. Among those living in the apartment is “the man who screams,” an African man named Mateo who happens to be dying of AIDS, whose screams can constantly be heard throughout the building. On Halloween night, the girls trick-or-treat through their apartment building and knock on Mateo’s door, although it says in big letters “KEEP AWAY.”
Their persistance finally causes Mateo to give in and open the door. Despite his screaming, Mateo is gentle with the girls, crying as he hears the story of their brother, Frankie, who died of a brain tumor. Although Mateo is dying, he is savoring the life that he has remaining, in stark contrast to Johnny, who is physically alive, but a mental and emotional ghost, lifeless. As the girls and their mom, Sarah, latch on to Mateo, Johnny sees him as a threat and steers clear of him.
“In America” is the story of the Sullivan family, Johnny, Sarah, Christy, and Ariel. They are an Irish family that has immigrated to the United States through Canada with the premise of starting a new life. Of course, in this “land of opportunity,” where would one go for a new start but New York City. As the family drives through Manhattan in their station wagon we hear The Lovin’ Spoonful singing “Do You Believe in Magic?” a perfect segue and introduction to this film and the “magic” that is necessary to overcome one’s grief.
The story is told through the eyes of Christy, probably about 8 or 9, as she carries around her video camera, documenting the major events that she and her family experience on this adventure. In many ways, it seems like an homage to films like “To Kill A Mockingbird” where the innocence of childhood was used to tackle a difficult life-subject. Christy is constantly holding her camcorder and filming, something her little sister eventually laments as she tells her family that she has no one to play with and Christy tells all her secrets to her camera.
In the midst of the trials of job-hunting and acclimating to new surroundings, Johnny and Sarah take advantage of a stormy night and send the girls to the ice cream parlor, appropriately called “Heaven,” while they share some intimate moments together. Out of these moments, Sarah conceives a child. As Johnny Sullivan struggles to find work in Manhattan, the couple struggles through the process of getting their feet underneath them. The apartment building that the family lives in is hardly posh as they live among junkies and other miscreants of society. Among those living in the apartment is “the man who screams,” an African man named Mateo who happens to be dying of AIDS, whose screams can constantly be heard throughout the building. On Halloween night, the girls trick-or-treat through their apartment building and knock on Mateo’s door, although it says in big letters “KEEP AWAY.”
Their persistance finally causes Mateo to give in and open the door. Despite his screaming, Mateo is gentle with the girls, crying as he hears the story of their brother, Frankie, who died of a brain tumor. Although Mateo is dying, he is savoring the life that he has remaining, in stark contrast to Johnny, who is physically alive, but a mental and emotional ghost, lifeless. As the girls and their mom, Sarah, latch on to Mateo, Johnny sees him as a threat and steers clear of him.
But Sarah’s pregnancy is not without issue and there is concern from the doctor that she or the baby might not make it. Johnny is angry that Sarah is risking her life for this baby and Sarah rebukes him for not really living his life. He storms out of the apartment and encounters Mateo, who he chooses to confront about his possible love for Sarah. But Mateo, in his current state, is in love with anything that has life in it. He accuses Johnny of not believing. Johnny replies, “In what? God? You know, I asked him a favor. I asked him to take me instead of him. And he took the both of us, and look what he put in my place. A (expletive) ghost. I can’t laugh. I can’t cry. I can’t feel.” We finally see the impact that his son’s death has had on Johnny as he describes it in his own words. For him, it is a moment of growth as he begins to understand that everyone’s perception of him is correct, he can finally admit his lifelessness. Later on, at a school performance, Christy sings “Desperado,” appropriately sung towards her father, who now holds her camcorder as he records the performance.
The baby finally comes, but early, and is whisked away to the NICU. The hospital bills continue to rise until the final bill comes to $30,420.20. Still unable to find significant work, Johnny struggles to find the funds. Without spoiling the entire plot of the movie, let me just say that when Johnny goes to the hospital administrator, he finds that his balance is zero, his debt has been paid, he owes nothing.
The final moments of the film are among the most poignant and beautifully acted of the entire film. The girls and Johnny sit outside on their fire escape, watching the stars. Ariel is sad that Mateo never said goodbye and Johnny points to the moon and says that he can see Mateo, riding his bike past the moon and waving goodbye. Christy plays along and finally convinces Ariel that she sees it too, and Ariel claims that she can see him, just like "E.T."m riding past the moon. As they say “goodbye” to Mateo, Christy and Ariel also say, “Goodbye, Frankie” to the brother that they lost.
This is a defining moment for Johnny as he stops short of saying Frankie’s name. He hasn’t let him go, he hasn’t accepted the fact that he is gone. But Christy looks at her dad and says, “Say goodbye to Frankie, Dad.” With tears in his eyes, he finally says it. He finally begins the process of letting go. He can feel again, the children have their dad back and Sarah has her husband back. There is death and there is new life. There is closure, but the memory still remains. Even Christy realizes that she wants to remember Frankie as he was in his best times, not what he was like when the cancer had depleted him.
The human spirit is a remarkable thing. We have the power to remember, etching memories into our brains that will last a lifetime. We hold on to simple moments that have spoken to us and transformed us. We echo the words of Jim Croce when he sang, “If I could save time in a bottle.” We long to relive those moments, but will sometimes settle for them to simply remain in our minds. When we lose someone, besides the photographs, all we have are our memories to remind us of the person.
For those of us who believe in Jesus Christ, we have a hope that we will one day be reunited with those who have gone before us in Christ. But even that hope is overshadowed by the pain of loss that we experience. There is an emptiness within us, and although we are happy that our loved one is no longer suffering, grief overcomes us. How do we respond to this grief? Do we respond like Johnny, becoming a shell of our former selves, useless to those who are still living and breathing around us? Or do we respond like Mateo, as we face our own demise, we cling to every ounce of life that we can and love everything that lives and breathes around us?
There is no formula for grief and the amount of time that it takes for all of us to navigate through its dark and stormy waters. Eventually, we will need to live our lives again though. We may feel incomplete, we may struggle to allow for our healing, but those who have gone before us would want us to continue to embrace the life that we have, just as Mateo did. And we will continue to live in the hope that one day, we will be reunited again, never to be separated by sickness, death, or any of the other results of sin that we constantly encounter in this world.
