Love, Reign O'er Me, Rain on me.

It is 12:45 AM on January 1, 2011. I did not have an exciting New Year. Instead, I had a pleasant one. Our older boys headed to the ski hill for a night of tubing, bonfires, hotdogs, and hot chocolate with friends, and our middle sized boys spent a fun evening at the movies watching the newest in the Chronicles of Narnia, while the little four and I stayed home, had pizza and punch, and then finished our evening off with the movie The Secret Garden.

Once the little ones were all tucked up in bed, my hubby and I sat down to watch a movie. We browsed through a few looking for one that appealed for such a night as this. We settled on one that I thought was going to be funny given it had Adam Sandler in it. And with him you never know what kind of movie it will be. So I was forewarned and forearmed with another movie choice.

As soon as the beginning came up it stated it was an R movie. ICK. I don't do R movies. I then pulled out my trusty computer and went to pluggedinonline and did a check to see the content. I was surprised to see it was not to be a comedy, but actually a very profound drama.

Adam Sandler played the character, Charlie Fineman, a former dentist who lost his wife and three daughters in a plane crash in 9/11. His old college roommate spied him one day riding downtown New York on a motorized scooter. Alan Johnson, the friend, soon discovered that his old classmate was a shell of the man he used to be, having cut himself off from anyone who knew him in his former life, and having become an emotionless individual who played video games and renovated his kitchen every couple months.

It didn't take long for me to be swept up in this movie. Such a painful story, yet so necessary to watch, to understand what my daughter has been through. Yes, both my children have had a lot of loss, but one in particular, has endured so much more. To see this man so paralyzed by grief that he refused to speak of his family, acting as if he didn't remember, was sobering and eye-opening. I felt I was looking at my daughter.

And the irony is that the previous movie spoke to both my daughter and myself: The Secret Garden. This little girl arrived in England, an angry little girl, but one who did not know how to cry. We talked about Mary and Raine understood her.

There were parts in Reign Over Me that brought me to tears, especially the court case. My heart felt ripped in two as I transferred his grief to my sweet daughters and thought of what they have had to live through. It is really almost beyond my comprehension what they have experienced. The only way I can begin to imagine it is to pretend it is one of my little boys whose hearts I know so well. Then it becomes flesh and blood real because I *know* how they would react - with terror and sadness and grief and confusion and broken hearts, and perhaps they too, would eventually shut down, because to think about it just hurts too stinking much!

When I watched this movie it made me realize why consequences just don't make sense. Not to a child who has faced such trauma. I understand now, more fully, why without secure attachment, consequences can do more harm than good. Yes, we want a child to recognize that what they did was wrong. But really, in the face of life, does it *really matter* when they didn't do their chores, were disobedient, unkind, told a lie, and all the other things that get them corrected through the day?

No, I am not going to suddenly become a different person. That will take a miracle. But I am going to be so much more astute to the fact that in the grand scheme of things I need to say to myself:

DOES IT REALLY MATTER!?     before I dish out a correction - no matter how small!!

I have heard over and over that when a child is attached there will come less behaviours. But truly it is frustrating when you know a child knows how to do the thing they are not doing, or the thing they have chosen to do wrong, and that makes it hard to ignore, because you are used to parenting your other children in a different manner. But I have to remind myself over and over and over again - that until that attachment is solid they are going to react to correction in a differently than my boys. So a gentle redirection, a soft correction is going to do so much more for undoing the damage that has been done, than a consequence.

Because any form of correction can be construed as a form of trauma to children who have lived the life my girls have. And this probably rings true for every child that has been adopted at a later age. They have all experienced too much.

So please, do rent this movie, but be warned it is not for children. There is a fair bit of language, but the depth and profoundness of the movie made it worthwhile. It will speak to your heart and open your eyes to what grief, trauma, and loss can do to a person - let alone a little child. And we have the nerve to say 'children are resilient'. Who says!

Only love,
Can make it rain,
The way the beach is kissed by the sea.

Love, Reign ov'r me.
Love, Reign ov'r me, Rain on me.

Only love,
Can bring the rain,
That makes you yearn to the sky.
Only love,
Can bring the rain,
That falls like tears from on high.

Love, Reign ov'r me.
Love, Reign ov'r me, on me.


Peter Townshend
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