Life is beautiful.
But, beauty should never be confused with bliss.
A few weeks ago I watched the movie, “Life is Beautiful”, with my 10 year old daughter. It was a story I wanted her to see, especially since she had been reading about the Holocaust.
I remember being very touched by this film when I saw it for the first time many years ago, and I knew she would be too.
In fact, she was as glued to the screen as I was when I first watched it.
As the movie progressed, she wanted reassurance from me that there would be a happy ending.
“The family is going to get out alive, right?”
“You have to watch and find out,” I told her.
“But they are all going to live, right?”
“I’m not giving away the ending.”
When the main character died, she was tears. And she was furious with me.
It was unfathomable to her that a protagonist doesn’t get his “happily ever after”.
I tried to explain that what made the movie so beautiful was the man’s love for his family. Movies, just like life, don’t require a fairy tale ending to be beautiful.
Yes, life is beautiful.
But, it is beautiful – not in spite of heartaches – but because of them.
194 blog posts down – 171 more to go…