If Your Life Were A Movie

You remember this game right?

Long car rides would often initiate this pondering for us, “if your life were a movie…..” – and we had lots of long car rides growing up and early in my marriage as we traveled with a professional theater company.  Who would play you?  What would be the title?  Highlights, important scenes, climax, so on and so on.

Well, I finally saw a movie that has been out for several years and at the end, with tears running down my cheeks (not uncommon for me bringing on lots of teasing from my kids), together we talked about how this movie we just watched was “Our Movie”.  I mean it was our life, our life lessons, our world, our – so many things.

What movie you ask?

It came out in 2011 and was inspired by a true story about a sea animal and the compassionate strangers who banded together to save her life.  Yep, ‘Dolphin Tale’ – or as everyone knows, the story of the Bakers. (really?)

Here is a brief description in case you are unfamiliar (https://www.warnerbros.com/dolphin-tale):

Based on true events, Dolphin Tale is an inspiring family film about the bond between animals and humans, as it tells the story of Winter, a young dolphin who loses her tail in a crab trap and Sawyer, the introverted, 11-year old boy who befriends her.   Sawyer meets the rescued dolphin at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, a marine rehabilitation center where she lives, and rallies friends and family alike to save Winter by convincing a pioneering doctor to create a unique prosthetic attachment to restore the dolphin’s ability to swim.

No, none of us are dolphins.  None of us have ever rescued a dolphin.  None of us have a prosthetic. We don’t live on a boat or work at a Marine Hospital. So why is this “Our Movie”?

“She has to want to live”. 

“Just because you’re hurt doesn’t mean you’re broken.”

If you have been reading my blog then you know that we are an adoptive family.  Our two oldest children were adopted from a long term foster care situation which included two “interrupted” adoptions prior to our process of connecting as a family.  The last two years have been overwhelmed with major trauma reactions which have resulted in 911 calls, ER visits, psychiatric hospitalizations and residential stays.

The above quotes from the movie have been akin to so many discussions, conversations, encouragements, challenges and comfort in our journey as family.  It is true – we have to want to live, to be loved, to love, to be family, etc.  Each of us, individually and together.  One person can’t do the work for the other.  Even in the role of parent – I can’t make my daughter receive my love.  I can love – fully, show up even when I’ve been pushed away, try new approaches, make amends, so on and so on.  And I can be there every time hurt takes over, because sometimes it just does.

But I think the most impacting discussion about how this movie was so much like our life came from the scenes of Winter needing and working with her new tail.   It was our daughter who commented first about how the way that Winter learned to swim without a tail was now hurting her, just “like how we were used to living in foster care, but now we have a family, and the things I do make that hard.”  Such insight!

When we saw Winter’s reaction to the new tail – the screaming, the fit throwing, the breaking of the very thing designed to help – it hit home for all of us.  This was our life.

But the movie didn’t stop there, and neither does our story.

Winter had to learn to swim with a new tail, and we are learning to live as a new family.  This learning and acceptance doesn’t happen overnight.  Our family muscles are growing stronger each day, our attachment habits are getting healthier moment by moment, and our love expands with every interaction.

What is great is that our kids can actually believe and say with the young boy Sawyer, “Winter [us Bakers] and I are family now, and family is forever.”

What movie is “your life”?