The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones is a great novel, well most of it anyway. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and getting caught up in the realistic portrayal of the Salmon family truly feeling for their tragedy. Parts of it even made me cry just from the thought of someone losing a child in such a horrible fashion. But toward the end the book lost some of its umph. I think it's because it was told by the dead girl and it was hard to let her pass on as she watched her family grow older without her.

I thought the movie would be equally impressive. I was reading how it has a phenomenal director and how the girl chosen to play Suzie was perfect for the role. Perhaps those two things are true, but the movie fell extremely short of phenomenal. On a scale from one to ten I'd have to give it a three, and that's being generous.

The best parts of the book were missing from the movie. The parts that made the book so poignant and heart rendering were gone. In the place where these important factors that made the book a best seller were computer graphic images of the girls heaven. We could have used a little less graphic imagery and a lot more story.

I'm well aware how difficult it is to put a book into a movie without making the movie extremely long, but in this case they would have had a lot more storyline if they had forgone the imagery.

My best advice is to read the book and forget the movie.

Can there be forgiveness?

I was watching a movie the other day in which a marriage of 20 years was broken because a man had started an affair with another woman. At lunch one day he told his wife that they had been living a lie and confessed to the affair. Why? Because he wanted to be with the other woman.

The wife was dumbfounded, as well she might be. This came at her from out of the blue. But the words he spoke next hit me:

"I won't give her up. It's non-negotiable."

Now I went through 18 years of marriage the first go round. I tried and tried to do everything from emoting to meditating to trying to bring back the passion and nothing worked. The main reason was because I didn't have cooperation. It took two of us to make a marriage and it would take two of us to succeed.

Unlike this woman I didn't have a worry about him having an affair with anyone...it was more like him having an affair with his hobbies. I came in third in his life and for me that wasn't acceptable. I couldn't live that way no matter how hard I tried. I finally gave up, which wasn't easy. I don't take vows and promises lightly.

In the movie the man realizes that the wife is the only woman he really loves. Life isn't as good without her. My ex said something along those lines too, that he realized what he had only after it was gone. She forgave him and took him back; I didn't.

I would think that if my current husband had an affair that I could forgive him. I would think that if we were able to discuss it and work through it the love would overcome the feeling of betrayal and that maybe I could understand. The difference is that we share in what happened together.

The first time around I wasn't given a choice. I was cut out completely and spent hours at night roaming the house crying. When I tried to talk to him about things he was too tired to talk or he turned things around to where I was at fault. That, my friends, is not communication.

This time around I know that I have love in my life. I feel loved and I feel appreciated. That, I believe, is what makes the difference.