Room 10

I was impacted greatly today by the following dialogue from a movie called Room 10.

Scene set up: Hospital room where a man is sitting near his dying wife, and a nurse walks in and makes small talk for a minute until she realizes this is much more than just a dying woman and her husband.
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Man: We talked about this a million times, this moment, what it’d be like. Who’d be the one left behind. I can honestly say I’m glad it’s me holding her hand, and not the other way around.

Nurse: 45 years, we should all be so lucky.

Man: Luck’s got nothing to do with it.

Nurse: Sorry?

Man: Luck, it’s the lazy man’s excuse for not doing the work. Sometimes you just get tired of being married, tired of seeing the same person walk through the door, tired of the same old stories. While you’re busy being tired of each other, time’s passing. I guess we loved each other that whole time.

Nurse: So there’s no secret to it all, huh?

Man: Just one… stay in the room, she told me that.

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Wow. What a very cool perspective! You know, this is especially great for me because sometimes I forget that time is passing no matter what... no matter if I'm flying by the seat of my pants in a tight deadline, anxious about the weekend, or in a tiff about some lame argument that shouldn't even be a point of discussion. Time is passing no matter what. Why not make the time that is passing time worth living -- happily, content, satisfied, lovingly. We humans forget what's important so much... the unimportant: the unimportant point we must be right about; the unimportant place we go for dinner tonight, although we spend an hour deciding where to go; the unimportant TV show that takes the place of important intimate talks.

The short film Room 10 is from a short story contest sponsored by Glamour magazine. The short story is directed by Jennifer Aniston, her directorial debut. The short story was a true life situation about a woman who walked to the hospital everyday to be with her dying husband. The narrator, the nurse who wrote the story, was overwhelmed at the point the man was about to die and the woman asked her to call all the family... and within minutes the family was there. The elderly lady told her husband she'd be okay, and that everyone was there who loved him. It was then he passed on, and love consumed the room, and the heart of the nurse. Only in the movie did the gender get switched to where a man was watching his wife die.

I'm humbled at the serenity and connection between a long-standing marriage that sees the natural end of an earthly bond. Although bound by limits of this lifetime, it's such an amazing presence to behold. After that much time, those couples have more than just an earthly bond. They have an eternal one. And I would like to think the same goes for friendships from people who have made a lifetime commitment to another in the sense of loyalty, honesty, and compassion. These are living, and never dying. Eternal flames like that of our Lord, Jesus Christ. What a gift he gave to us; what a gift He is also.