powerful and sad

I just watched the movie Reign Over Me, which is about a friendship between two guys, played by Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle. Adam's character has lost his wife and kids in a plane crash but it's not until later in the movie you realize it's from September 11th. He had become sort of a lost soul, wandering the streets of New York City, and one day he randomly runs into Cheadle's character. They'd gone to dental school together. Anyway I found it a very powerful moving film but maybe also related to the wandering soul lost on the streets... lost family... powerful themes in my life. Funny I was just blogging about that theme Thursday.

I spoke with my brother, Lazer, on Thanksgiving, who was with his daughter (Kira) but said to me he hated the holidays because he didn't have family to spend it with. Dad was sick. Lazer said he knew why people killed themselves during the holidays. He's not a depressive type at all - in fact he is quite the opposite. Almost to the point of denial of the darkness and sadness of the soul that we all hold within us, especially those with as strong of abandonment themes as we carry from our childhood. I felt for him, because I felt exactly the same. I didn't think the thought of relating to why people kill themselves but I myself had felt the extreme pangs of loneliness and I didn't have my kids with me, and he did. He's a single dad. My mom, when I related this to her, in her typical manner said she was going to call him and tell him to 'stop being so negative.' God love her! Relate, acknowledge, understand, feel the pain, listen. Don't deny or negate the feelings! So I have my mom and dad still living, but lost both at various stages of my childhood, as well as other people I loved. I also lost innocence in their care. Speaking of loss and the loss of innocence I wanted to share these photos of these beautiful orphans from the Oshin Child Development Center in Kathmandu, Nepal that I visited. The website has photos and info but I'll post my own. I really liked Samrakshya - she is such a beautiful girl! My daughter is excited to write to her when she gets back from Mississippi tomorrow.

Samrakshya is the older one in the far right, in the back.
Note how they eat with their hands - this is the culture there.
The boys.

So cute!

They are happy, they are kids being kids.

One thing I wanted to relate that has nothing to do with the orphanage. In Kathmandu and other big cities there are street orphans that are very dirty, and they come up to you very aggressively and put their hands together in the Namaste sign which looks like praying, and then they touch their hands to their stomach and then to their mouth and hold out their hands. They won't leave you alone. I'd just arrived in Nepal and I saw this one old man come out of a grocery store in Thamel in Kathmandu and when the kids begged from him he pushed them away with his hand and said something in a really rude tone like "Get out of my way kid" or "scat" or something to that effect. The boy was with another street urchin, maybe his brother, maybe not and I can't get this image out of my head. The boy reached over and kind of patted him and hugged him. No anger by the boy toward the man, he just looked like he genuinely got his feelings hurt, and his friend comforted him (did I tell this story already?!). I noticed that in Nepal boys and men will walk down the street holding hands. It is not homosexuality, it's just the public display of affection between male friends. Here's a photo, but even grown men hold hands. Very different than in the U.S.!