Review of a Great Movie; P.S. I Love You

Prior to December 2007, had someone asked me to name a favorite movie prior to the opening release of PS, I Love You starring Gerard Butler and Hilary Swank, chances are the answer to this question might be completely different. Perhaps I would have chosen something along the lines of The Lake House or maybe even Under the Tuscan Sun. I have no experience with going into the past with the exception of my memories and the many mistakes I made through the years and when I say many mistakes, I quite literally mean many mistakes. Imagine the chance to take them all back. As for Under the Tuscan Sun, as a novelist, freelance writer, and the fact I lived having a previous husband cheat on me with another woman right under my nose without my knowing about it; however, nothing could prepare me for the late afternoon hours of January 23, 2009. It had only been a few weeks since I spent the afternoon watching PS, I Love You. Never before had I come so close to living the sadness, the pain, and the loneliness Holly felt when the man she loved so dearly died from causes beyond her control, destined or not.

On January 23, I received a frantic call from my husband of nearly twenty years. He had been visiting with his brother while he was in town from working in Iraq. My husband's stubbornness refused him to listen to me as well as his brother. Instead of going straight to the emergency room, he went to his doctor's office after suffering what he believed was a heart attack. As it turned out, he not only had a mild heart attack. By the time the EKG was complete and the doctor sent for the ambulance to take him to the heart center some 20 miles away, he suffered yet another heart attack only this time it was not a mild one; this time it was massive; it was also combined with a stroke. His health was not the best it could be due to spending a lifetime fighting the constant never-ending battle with juvenile diabetes. The worst part was that I could not get to him because I am unable to drive due to blindness.

The middle brother called to let me know he was coming to get me and while on the phone, he asked me to pack a bag. Our oldest daughter planned to watch our youngest so the kids were safe. I packed my bags in a daze barely remembering what I threw there short of my toothbrush, toothpaste, a change of clothes, and a nightgown not to mention my notebook computer so I could keep up with duties online. It kept my mind off the terrible thoughts going through my mind. My ability to read the thoughts and words of others told me that my husband's condition was not well; however, nothing prepared me for what I would find upon arrival in the critical care cardiac wing.

In my life many family members and friends were surrounded by tubes and IV bags. Even a few had spent their last days on a ventilator but nothing prepared me for seeing the man I married, lived with for some 20 years, bore two children, raised those children, fought, make up, make love, and basically lived the life of a married couple - the bitter with the sweet. Somehow though, through all the good times and the bad, I never allowed myself to think of his mortality. Upon walking into his room in the hospital, I felt bombarded by doctors, surgeons, and nurses all asking for us to go someplace quiet to talk. The discussions ranged from allergies, medications, how he felt lately, stress levels, his age (43 years old), and what I felt his wishes were. These things all led up to the fact that the only way to save his life was to perform a quadruple bypass at the earliest convenience. It had taken most of the evening hours to run all the necessary tests to figure out the best course of treatment. Seated in the small, warm conference room and given my expansive knowledge of medicine from personal and professional experience, I knew the doctors were right. I asked and then listened intently to the results of the tests run including the cardiac catherization. The cardiac surgeon, who by now realized I had professional experience in medicine, asked if I was aware of the medical term used by cardiologists called "The Widowmaker." It is not usually a term reserved for those outside of the medical field but given my history, he relented. I knew in the deepest recesses of my mind that had my husband not been in the best medical center for cardiac care, he would have most surely died without anything anyone could do for him had his doctor not been so vigilant in sending him where he could receive the best of care. Without the quadruple bypass surgery, he would likely not make it another two days without certain death.

I signed the forms for the surgery, the anesthesiologist, the operating room, and other forms necessary for his treatment. My husband was unable to handle the stress of making these decisions without the risk of promoting another heart attack or worse, bringing about another stroke.

Through the entire ordeal, I thought of the arguments I had with my biological father when he required cardiac care at the age of 47, especially given the fear that he would die like his mother at 46 from complications due to heart disease. If anything, I felt that when the time come, my father would die from cirrhosis of the liver due to his excessive alcoholism, which is not too late considering he survived the heart problems. I thought back to when his father was ill. I argued at length on behalf of my biological father as he was laid up someone too far into a bottle to bother to make the trip when his father was ill then later died with me being the last to leave his room that night. My grandfather died at 3am that following morning. I recall the phone conversation from the hospital nurse when he passed away. The doctors were able to give him another few days to say his goodbyes though at 85+ years, he had lived a long life. Some of those years okay, many others were not so okay. A few years earlier, the memories came flooding back when the woman I knew as mother died in her sleep from complications of autoimmune diseases and congestive heart failure. I remember what felt like hours that I sat in her bedroom holding her hand, crying like a child despite being a grown married woman with children of my own, one of which who was nearly grown herself. I remembered two weeks earlier when my aunt/mother asked me to take over as head of the family in the official capacity of matriarch so I could continue a tradition passed from generation to generation. It was my turn just as it had been hers when my grams died and my grams when great-grams died and so forth. My brain understood the mechanics of what would happen without the surgery as well as the possibilities of losing my husband regardless even with the surgery. Somehow, my brain was having a tough time explaining the whole process as well as the outcome to my heart.

I sat with my husband until he dozed off again late into the night. His mother and I went to the hotel room one of his brothers' secured for us earlier in the evening. The family went home with the promise of returning before the cardiac team were to take him into surgery the next day.

Late in the night after my mother-in-law lay sleeping, I tossed and turned until finally donning my housecoat and slippers, making sure I had the card key to get into the room, and some change to get a coffee before going to sit with my husband as he slept. It was against hospital policy but the night nurses with consent from his doctors, allowed me to sit with him for as long as I wished. I have no idea when I returned to the room but I know it was almost daylight because the nurses were getting ready to change shifts.

I showered and dressed quickly in order to make it back to the room to be with my husband before he left for surgery. He was intubated with a ventilator to prevent him from talking along with many tubes and wires monitoring every bodily function he had. I thought of Holly after losing Gerry then pushed the thought from my mind. I refused to allow my husband to die on me, as if I could stop it if the universe or fate had chosen that time to take him from me... from our girls... from all he loved...

The surgical team gave me a few minutes with him before taking him away on the gurney. I whispered how much I loved him. I also made him promise that if he felt himself slipping away to think of how much I loved him, how much our girls loved him, and how much it would hurt if he did not at least try to fight to come back. I even asked quietly for my mother/aunt and my grams to force him to return to me should they find him with them.

Throughout my life, people had a tendency to either not want me or to leave me. I was not sure I could handle losing the one man who infuriated me like no other yet somehow managed to tolerate my temperament and stay. Before him, I resigned myself to the fact that nobody stayed around. It was normal for everyone to leave. This husband of mine assured me that one day he would prove to me that not all loved ones leave, not all fathers walk out, not all husband run around or hit, and some day he would prove to me that marriages could last more than a few years without the husband and wife going separate ways and hating each other because of it. He even promised that despite the ideas I had about family, dysfunctional as mine was and had always been, he would prove to me that not all families were that way. Some actually enjoy each other's company despite how annoyed they became with one another at times.

In the days and weeks following the surgery, I often thought of Holly and how she lost Gerry. I thought of how Gerry did everything he could to prove to Holly that husbands do not always leave, parents do not always fight, and it was possible to survive on little to no income while living in one of the tiniest houses or apartments.

Gerry Kennedy did not get the chance to prove firsthand all the things he wanted to share with Holly but he did get to do so after his death via his letters, cards, cakes, and even the trip to Ireland where he reminded Holly of the reason he fell in love with her in the first place. He showed her the love he felt even after.

While my husband laid in the hospital bed on a bypass machine with the ventilator still connected and his inability to speak, I often thought of what it must have been like for Holly as she waited for Gerry to die while I hoped I was hoping against all hope my husband would live though there were no guarantees. His heart was badly damaged and then there were the complications from the stroke not to mention his juvenile diabetes, which seems to infiltrate every part of his being when he was ill, especially now. Thoughts of how in the nearly 20 years of time we had been together was more time than my parents were together including all their marriages to others combined crossed my mind. I thought of his father, who like mine missed the greatest years of his childhood albeit his father was never physically abusive as mine was. Then of course there were thoughts of how I would explain live and death to our children should everything go wrong and he not survive the surgery. Ideas crossed my mind how the least romantic man I happened to marry would never think to send me letters or directions on how to survive if he should die. Try as hard as I could, it was impossible for me to even imagine the days, weeks, and years that would follow if he did not pull through. The fact the cardiac surgeon, neurologist, general practitioner, and endocrinologist all had differing opinions as to what life would be like for him if he did survive.

The glimmer of hope came a few days before he came off the bypass machine and the ventilator. He was feeling better despite being in so much pain. I did all that I could not to show my sadness while in the room with him but once while I thought he was sleeping all I broke down in tears. He reached out for my arm, smiled as best he could, then gave me the thumbs up sign meaning he was feeling better and in his mind at least, he felt as if he had come through this hell and was on his way to the other side where life and our family would soon be reunited. It was the first time in all the time I spent day and night at the hospital by his bedside that I allowed myself to hope.

The day he came home from the hospital, he was hurting terribly even with the medications for pain, his heart condition, post-operative medications, preventative medications, and two replacement insulins in addition to a new diet to help with his heart condition, cholesterol, fluid retention, and his diabetes. He lay across our bed wearing only a pair of shorts because shirts caused the staples and sutures from the long incision in chest where the surgeon opened him up as well as the incisions in his legs to remove veins to replace the ones damaged in his chest were so painful. I laid on the bed next to him careful not to bump the bed to make the pain worse. For the first time in a long time, I was able to actually sleep as well as rest more that day than I had since he became ill; I woke each time he make a noise from the pain of moving or turned to get a swallow of water in the glass on the nightstand I placed there earlier.

In those days following his release and recovery... as much recovery as has been possible considering such an extensive surgery considering the danger and complications that follow, I keep thinking about Holly and Gerry. I think about how fortunate I am to have underwent such a trying ordeal in my marriage with a husband who was quite literally at death's door only to escape it's grip. Rarely in my life have I had the pleasure to feel as if I were somehow blessed until now.

There is one thought that comes back to me time and time again no matter how hard I try to push it away permanently. Throughout my childhood, as dysfunctional as it was, I was taught to believe in fate and destiny. Somehow, with all the bad things that occurred before meeting the man who later became my husband and whom I shared this life-threatening ordeal, I keep thinking that perhaps with all the bad stuff that came before he entered the picture, perhaps sis survival of such a complex series of health conditions was destiny and fate's way of making up for all the hardships I faced from infancy until the day I found him, we made it through the rough spots, fell in love, married, and started our family.

In the end, the film, PS, I Love You is just that - a film; however, it is a film about the hardships of what families and couples go through every day somewhere in the world be it the result of a strokes, heart attacks, brain aneurysms, brain tumors, cancers of other parts of the body not to mention various accidents leaving family and loved ones paralyzed or otherwise incapacitated or even dead. We as survivors are left to pick up the pieces of the lives left shattered, tattered, and in ruins with nothing but our memories to keep us company on those lonely days and nights until one day the pain we feel from the loss of that someone special no longer feels as if someone stabbed us directly in the heart. The aching that was once unbearable becomes tolerable. We will never forget those left behind.

As Gerry Kennedy stated so beautifully and full of wisdom, we cannot live in the past. We must move forward. After all, tomorrow is a brand new day, We must do the difficult job of clearing away the excess memories that serve no purpose except keep us tethered to a life that no longer exists for us. We must make new memories. These pearls of wisdom does not relate solely to those who have lost loved ones either. It relates to those of us who have had our near misses with the ones we love who survived those life-threatening illnesses and accidents. We must learn that life is precious. It can turn on a dime - life/death... We are not immortals. Sooner or later our time will be up. It is what we do with our lives that makes life worth living and worth remembering.

PS: As the days pass from January 23-24, 2009, my husband's health is improving. He may never be able to return to work because of the extensive damage his heart sustained from the mild then major heart attacks, or his brain from the stroke, or even the juvenile diabetes. Even with diet and medication, diabetes is an odd disease that has a mind of its own no matter the insulin, the diet, and the overall care of his body. Diabetes tends to do what it pleases regardless of the intervention by the person with the disease and even more so for those of us without health insurance and the inability to not only pay for it but moreover, those who cannot obtain it because health insurance companies refuse to sell policies to those with juvenile diabetics just as these companies refuse to tell insurance to anyone else with a terminal disease such as the ones I fight on a daily basis along with countless others in this country.

It begs the question of the medical community as to when the promise of doing no harm changed to do not harm unless the person you treat has health insurance then all bets are off; however, I cannot hold too much ill will toward doctors. It is the pharmaceutical companies that I have problems with along with the congressmen who allow pharmaceutical companies to line their pockets, which force more and more working poor and middle-income off the health insurance rolls, those who need it most. Some might say there is always Medicare, Medicaid, and emergency funds but that is not always the case. If a person is $1 or even $.50 over the limit in assets, which can include a car for a child with a driver's license who must have one when one or both parents are blind or otherwise unable to drive due to health conditions must depend upon in order to leave home in the land of urban sprawl where public transportation does not exist are left out in the cold without access to healthcare or life-saving medication.

It is high-time this country called the United States of America stop thinking about themselves and start following the health care systems of the healthiest countries in the world where health care and medication, life-saving medication, is denied to nobody. We here in the USA are far from being the superpower of the world when the citizens have no empathy for those who will otherwise die without these drugs that require prescriptions from doctors who must treat the patients on a regular basis in order to keep the medicine dosage amounts within safety limits.

P.S. I Love You should be a wake up call for everyone who watches it. I rank it up there with John Q starring Denzel Washington. P.S. I Love You takes John Q. one step further by showing us what life is like when medicine fails us leaving us with the fallout of those who are left behind.

Take a chance on P.S. I Love You. It will bring tears, sadness, laughter, and joy with all the stages of grief moving along yet with the helping hand of Gerry, the love of Holly's life.