Death and Dying and the 5 year old

Today, Darryl and I went to see the movie Up and to the summer pool. The movie Up was good.

We had watched the Earthling on TV before going to Up. Both movies deal with death and dying. Needless to say...I spent most of the day explaining death and dying to Darryl.

I had to assure him that no one in his immediate family was going to die for years to come.

In the movie Up, the wife dies. Darryl made the comment...oh She went to live somewhere else. I left it at that. I guess he couldn't deal with death anymore. In the back of his mind, he knew she died. I guess he just wanted to let me know....Dad, this what I am telling myself what happened. Don't tell me otherwise. I didn't.

At the pool, he learned to swim freestyle. His arms alternated out of the water. He jumped off the side of the pool into my arms in the deep end. He jumped off the diving board into my arms. Pretty awesome. I am exhausted from all the treading water I did waiting for him to jump. Actually he wasn't that bad with getting the courage up to jump in the water. I am just out of shape.

We saw our neighbor, Nick, at the pool with his semi adopted mother, Deborah. Apparently, Nick has swine flu? This is the neighborhood rumor. I didn't know this until I got back home. I am surprised to have seen him at the pool.

We saw one of our hillbillie trailer park trash neighbors. We have Arab hill billies and white hill billies. He is a white hill billy. He walks around with his unbelievably fat kids. He talks to anyone he can find and smokes none stop. I have no idea where he comes from. I run into the house every time I see his family waddling down the street. Today, he spent the entire time talking up the lifeguards, blowing smoke in their face, while his fat kids floated in the pool. Forgot how well fat kids float. You think they can swim...but they aren't. They are just moving their arms.

The Earthling is a movie drama starring William Holden and Rick Schroder. It was filmed in 1979 in Australia, and released there in 1980. Peter Collinson directed this film and died of cancer shortly after its release.

This was one of William Holden's last films. He plays Patrick Foley, a jaded loner who is dying of cancer and decides to return to the outback where he was born. He has stopped taking his medicine and is at peace with his decision to die alone in the woods. On his journey, he notices a family camping. From a neighboring peak, Foley watches as Shawn (Schroder), a seven year old boy, removes a piece of wood from the tire of the family's camper because he was helping his father collect firewood. The camper rolls off the cliff it is parked next to with Shawn's parents inside. Shawn climbs down from the cliff only to realize his parents are dead. Foley has an ethical dilemma- take the stranded seven year old back to civilization, and lose his own wish to die where he was born, or continue his personal mission and let the boy die alone in the wilderness. He decides to take the boy with him, and teaches him along the way how to survive in the wilderness. A strong bond grows between the two, and when Foley finally dies, Shawn is equipped to travel out of the outback alone.