2 days ago, I get home from work
At about 7PM
Satellite TV is boring as hell that day
Or I don’t know if I was just tired from how the day went
So, I get to take a cup of tea and a chapatti
And slip away to my room to catch a movie or two
In the previous weeks, I had downloaded myself quite a bunch of them
And my mind was set out on making a choice between 2 of those…. Five Feet Apart and The Neighbour
Now, here is the problem
I liked both of them
Right from their respective trailers when I watched them on YouTube
And it kinda got hard for me to pick out one
So, I did things the old fashioned way….peruse through them and skip every 5 or 10 minutes! Whichever would grab my attention longest in those moments would be my pick
And there I had it…. “Five Feet Apart”, it was.
Aaahhhhhh….this movie had been crying on two occasions because it hit home on so many points
- It reminded me so much of my first love and relationship
- It rotated around a subject that I enjoy so much….romance
- It largely spoke about CF aka Cystic Fibrosis…a horrible disease, if we are to be frank with ourselves, that I got to know of from a lovely lady I have met on these blogging-streets
- It reminded me of what I studied at the university about psychology and how human touch is such an important aspect of our existence
- Lastly, what it means to always be as human as we possibly can….feel, smell, touch, breathe, live….all that!
Speaking of my first ever love and relationship, her name is Ruth (yeah, so we kinda lost touch after that) and we were together for a year and 5 months. Up and till that moment when we became official, I had never dated anybody before….I didn’t even know what love of that nature felt like or what making love was. I was bleak!
We were in luck, though. She had dated before and one thing that she said struck me out…”Baby, you are the one person that I have dated so far that has treated me this nicely. I love you”. You can try to guess how nnniiccceeeee that felt, huh! For the record, we were teenagers at the time. The first time we held hands, I vividly recall, our palms did sweat and our grasp felt like the most secure one ever in the world. Whenever I would be away from her, I would always miss her grasp, her bear hugs and our feet-fights below the tables! I never got to fully appreciate her touch until when I couldn’t have it!
I really miss her and loved her honesty with me.
CF, for those that have never heard of it, is Cystic Fibrosis, scientifically called and it’s one terminal disease that has your lungs all practically weak all your life and producing all this mucus. In my whole entire life, I know of about 5 people that live with CF and perhaps, it will be good to check them out and learn a thing or two from them.
Back to the movie, we got Stella and Will. They both live with CF and are on treatment in the same hospital. Now, if anything ever comes out 2 people living in the same proximity, it is that affection is bound to be formed and grown over time. And that’s what happens between these two young people.
They fall for each other but you know, when you live with a disease that keeps you jailed like CF, your will tends to give way to living. Will, as a matter of fact, doesn’t take living to be a top-priority in his life and yet Stella does. On the other end, we discover that Stella has the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD-thing) going for her and she lives for the control of things, if you know what I mean.
The trick lies in their fibrosis that they carry. It is different from one another and once in the closeness of less than 5 feet, they both stand a chance of contracting a second one which duly means that their chances of survival and living are thrown into the wind.
Young people are always looking for ways to shake up things and Stella comes up with all these ways to achieve her goal of touching Will like wearing latex gloves all the time, using a pool cue as a five-foot walking distance, FaceTiming all the time with her boo. It all works out fine until Pope passes away in his room just after Stella gathers up her closest friends and Wills’ to celebrate his 18th birthday together at the hospital cafeteria. Pope happens to be Stella’s best friend and lives with CF, too, in the same hospital, St. Grace.
She makes up her mind to touch Will, live in the moment with him and see where the world takes them. So cute, right?
I’ll leave you with something to think about….from Stella!
Stella: “This whole time, I have been living for my treatments instead of doing my treatments so that I can live”. Powerful, isn’t it?