Death and Disney's "Onward"

Because the theaters are closed down, various streaming companies have the movies which were in the theater available to buy through their services. This works out well for our family as taking a 5 person family to the theater to see "Onward" would have cost two times as much and we would have only seen the movie once. 

We bought "Onward" on our last family movie night and, apart from really enjoying it, I was struck by it's appropriately timed release.

Spoiler Alert:

The movie has many fun and creatively interesting aspects, but its theme is coping with the impact of death. The main characters, two brothers, lost their father to disease at an early age. The elder brother was old enough to have a few vague memories, the younger was still in the womb. They get a chance, through magic, to meet their father but a fumble happens and all that returns is his lower half (and my pervy side laughed, thinking, "That's the half important to mom."). A quest ensues to find the object which will allow the brothers the ability to finish bringing their father back in totality ... but there's a time limit to observe. 

There's a poignant moment when the younger brother, in a time of hopelessness, realizes that he's not been without fatherly support all his life, his brother was the one there for him in all the moments he'd hoped to share with his dad. When the father is brought back, but circumstances force a decision between which brother gets those few precious moments with him, the younger brother sacrifices his chance to meet his father for his older brother who didn't have someone there being fatherly for him. 

I'm not going to lie, I cried. I'm tearing up now as I type. Sacrificing yourself for someone else's benefit is always a beautiful thing.

Through the movie, we see two brothers who have been adversely impacted by having to live without someone important because of death. They find a way to make peace with what they hadn't been able to control.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. All of us are going to die, and most of us will die from something, and in a time, not of our choosing. Be smart for yourself about trying to stay healthy through this covid19 scare, but death is going to happen, it will make an impact on those who survive, and those who survive always have the responsibility to either be crushed or find a way to make their peace with a loss they wished they didn't have to endure.

We only have the illusion of control. None of us are promised our next breath, let alone the next day, and certainly not long and healthy lives. All any of us can really do is make sure the people we love know they are loved and to make our peace while we can. And, if we lose a loved one before we'd like, we have to make a way to accept it and move on peacefully and productively from it.

There are many meanings to life, this is one: To love one another while we have each other to love.