A Walk to Remember
I've watched the movie “A Walk to Remember” almost seven years ago and it was without a doubt, a tear-jerker. I’ve watched it five times more, but it was not until last week that I was able to read the book. Although the movie was a bit different from the original plot of the novel, both moved me to the very sad fact that we only get to appreciate someone when he/she’s gone or when we know that he/she won’t stay very long. Apart from this, the novel speaks about a love so true; it is willing to face the pain of seeing someone slowly slip away.The author, Nicholas Sparks, was inspired to write this touching story when his sister, Danielle Sparks died of cancer in 2000. He admitted in a speech he gave in Berlin that in many ways the girl in the novel, Jamie Sullivan, was her younger sister. Danielle, just like Jamie, also met a man who wanted to marry her despite knowing the painful truth that she might not be able to make it through her sickness.
I finished reading the novel yesterday and just as expected, I cried buckets of tears while reading the last few pages. It was then that Landon, the main male character, was battling with the reality that Jamie could be gone so soon and he didn’t even know how to make her remaining days as bearable as possible. In the movie, Jamie wanted to do a lot of things. She wanted to witness a miracle, build a telescope to see a comet that was only visible once in a thousand years, get a tattoo, be in two places at the same time, and get married in the church where her parents exchanged their vows. But, in the novel, Jamie only wanted the latter. And so, she got what she had wished for. She walked down the aisle even when she was suffering so much, even when she was too frail to even take a single step. Landon, was looking at her every move, keen to her breathing; knowing and feeling that the woman walking towards him was the woman he truly loved and the woman that he was about to lose - it was a walk to remember.
I know being in Landon’s place is truly heartbreaking. It is a painful reality that loss is a part of life. For once, he asked himself where he was when Jamie was still healthy and full of life; he was just in the side line, making fun of her ‘odd” behavior. This novel has showed me the importance of savoring every moment, every laughter and every tear with the ones we love. I once lost someone I love, not through a sickness, but I guess through my own shortcomings and lack of affection. I do regret that I allowed his leaving to happen, but I do know that things happened for a purpose. But, if I could only turn back time and have that person feel how I loved him so dearly, I would. I should have hugged him more often, told him words of encouragement, went to many places with him. I should have talked to him more… How I wish I knew better. How I wish I’d never have to regret like this.
Let us not allow time to pass without ever doing something for the ones we love most. For in this world, our relationships are the ones that weigh most, not money and surely not fame. Live a life of no regrets!
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