Author: Raine

Terms of Endearment begins with a mother’s fear that her daughter has died and ends with the reality of her daughter’s death. Love and grief are intertwined in this story that tells the story of the complicated relationship between Emma and her mother Aurora. Wikipedia does a good job explaining the story, but doesn’t recap the elements of grief and death from a thanatological perspective.

The movie starts with Aurora coming out from an evening out and going in to see her infant daughter still in the crib. She shakes her and when Emma starts crying she realizes she is still alive so she turns the lights out and leaves.

A few scenes later, we learn that Aurora’s husband, and Emma’s father, has died. Although we had not gotten to know him, in a way his death hangs over the entire film as Aurora is terrified of connecting with another man and even when her daughter dies decades later, she is still wearing her wedding ring. She continues to push men away until she finally takes a chance and lets the playboy astronaut Garrett into her bed and her heart. And although he is unable to tell her he loves her, he shows her by showing up when Emma is in the hospital dying of cancer. And he shows up for Emma’s children at her memorial service.

The love and grief of marriage and betrayal is also showcased in the film as Flap, Emma’s husband, has a relationship with a grad student that has him following her to Nebraska. Emma also seeks out love and tenderness elsewhere when she begins an affair with a banker who is kind to her and is in his own tormented marriage. She has to leave her lover behind when Flap decides the family is moving to Nebraska.

Despite the mutual affairs, there is still a deep love between Flap and Emma that is evidenced by the tender scenes in the hospital when Emma is dying. They are both still wearing their wedding rings when they embrace and share how much they still love each other, despite the pain they’ve caused each other.

The anticipatory grief is payable in the last part of the movie, when it becomes evident that Emma will die of her cancer. The saddest scene is when she tells her sons how much she loves them and tells her oldest not to beat himself up for not being able to tell her that he loves her. Her son is the only one who truly expresses anger over her death, as he lashes out and pushes her away.

Mom’s trying to manage the caterers, the florists, and all the other hustle and bustle that comes with a wedding reception. Dad’s shooting blanks at the birds to make them vacate the premises. Jackson, the groom, is sneaking into Shelby’s room to tell her how much he loves her. However, amidst the laughter, beauty, and romance, there are clues that Shelby might not get the happy ending she’s hoping for. Shelby and her mom head to Truvy’s beauty shop to get her hair done before here wedding. As Shelby is happily talking about skinny-dipping with her soon-to-be husband and rhapsodizing about her very pink wedding, she suffers a hypoglycemic attack and her mother forces her to drink orange juice to raise her blood sugar. She recovers quickly, but her mom tells their friends that the doctor told Shelby she shouldn’t have children. We also learn that Shelby considered ending her engagement to Jackson so that he could have children with someone else. He wouldn’t even consider it and said they could adopt kids.

We see Shelby walking down the aisle with her father, the happy reception, and then life goes on for Shelby and Jackson. We see her visiting her mamma, M’Lynn, periodically and then coming home for the Christmas festival. It’s Christmastime when Shelby tells her mother that she’s pregnant and all she wants is for her mother to be happy for her. However, M’Lynn can’t be happy because she knows the doctor told Shelby it would be dangerous to get pregnant. Shelby begs for her support and tells her mom that she wasn’t able to adopt because of her Type 1 Diabetes. She adds that “I’d rather have 30 minutes of wonderful, than a lifetime of nothing special.”

The next time we see Shelby it’s Jackson’s first birthday and family and friends are singing about him being “Born on the 3rd of July.” Shelby’s decided to get her hair cut to make it easier to manage and she heads off to Truvy’s to get her haircut. Her friends are there and amid the laughter, we see the bruises on Shelby’s arms, and she says offhandly those are from dialysis. Her friends are stunned that she is in such bad health that she needs a transplant, and sad that it could take a long time to get one. However, Shelby reveals that her mother is going to give her a kidney.

Shelby gets her kidney and she’s healthy for a while, but her world comes crashing down at Halloween. She almost collapses in the NICU where she works and she does collapse when she gets home. Jackson finds their son Jack wandering around the house alone and the food burning on the stove. He finds Shelby, and she is rushed to the hospital in a coma. Despite the best efforts of her family, especially her mom who never leaves her side, and the doctors, Shelby’s condition is irreversible and they remove live support.

At Shelby’s funeral, her mother holds it together until almost everyone is gone, and then she lets her rage, her sadness, and her anger flow freely. Her friends support her by making her laugh and by Annelle, who worked with Truvy, telling M’Lynn that, boy or girl, she’s going to name her child after Shelby. The movie ends with Annelle being rushed to the hospital to give birth surrounded by her friends.

Although on the surface, much of this movie is a lighthearted romp about love and female friendship, grief is woven through it from the opening scene. We first encounter grief over the loss of a dream when we find out that Shelby shouldn’t have children and we realize she and Jackson are losing their dream of having their own child. Then we encounter M’Lynn’s grief over her daughter’s decision to risk her life to have a child. It is clear from the movie that M’Lynn was the one that managed Shelby’s medical life and that she understands, perhaps better than Shelby herself, how risky it is for Shelby to have a child.

M’Lynn’s hope and grief are palpable when she is in the hospital with Shelby almost willing her to open her eyes and when Shelby dies, M’Lynn remains strong for her family, until she is left standing alone at her daughter’s graveside looking at the spray of flowers on her casket. Then her raw emotion comes out, the anger, the grief, the sadness, and the hopelessness. I found her emotional outburst so realistic. And I am so glad that they did not have M’Lynn singing to the ground in tears. Instead she raged and she cried. And she rightfully got mad when Annelle told her that Shelby was in a better place.

If you haven’t seen this 35-year-old movie, take some time to watch it. Despite a few things that are out of date like smoking indoors and asking a woman if she was going to quit her job because she was getting married, it has aged very well.

Walter Carter Funeral Home is a 130-year-old business in Sydney Australia that is facing the economic reality of consolidation in the funeral home business. In order to stay alive, Walter Carter joins forces with another family owned funeral home, which means that the company will survive, but it also means the close-knit team is torn apart. The Secret Life of Death tells the story a year of turmoil, change, and death.

The documentary starts out by introducing Jasmine, the funeral director who takes care of the bodies, and Amber who takes care of the bodies. The women are close, but both believes they have the best job as Jasmine has no desire to take care of the bodies and Amber flat out says that “Dead bodies are her favorite people.” When the merger is announced, the front of the house staff, including Amber and the owner Dale, stay together, but Amber is forced to move to another location an hour away, which breaks up the team and causes angst.

As this is a show about the funeral industry, it is not surprising that funerals figure prominently in the show. A celebration of life for an American musician, a more solemn ceremony for a Chinese man, and images from a Nigerian celebratory funeral are featured throughout the documentary. However, the most heartbreaking funeral of the show is that for Odette. Odette is a 46 year old woman with breast cancer who works with Richard, one of the funeral directors from Walter Carter, to plan her funerals. She wants a horse drawn hearse, doves released, and her drag queen friends to show up as themselves. And she doesn’t want the “fucking ugly” ties that Walter Carter’s personnel wear. Richard grows closer to her as he plans her funeral and at the end of the documentary we find out she has died.

Richard, along with Jasmine, pick up her body and take it to Amber to take care of. From there, it is off to the venue she personally chose for her funeral and we see her funeral play out exactly as she envisioned it, right down to her gold Christian Louboutin placed on her white coffin.

Overall this documentary perfectly captured the compassion and diligence of a modern day funeral home without being too maudlin.

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