Does anyone else feel haunted by this movie and its dynamics between the mother and the daughter. My mom has had cancer twice, and recently :-(, so it always makes me sad to see this movie. Its been a favorite of mine for years though. I wish renee would do more stuff like this.
shareI know EXACTLY what you're talking about. I loved this movie when it first came out, and when my mother was diagnosed with cancer 2 years ago, I ended up loving it even more. Maybe "loving" is not the right word, more like, appreciate it. I can relate every character of the family to mine. It hits a nerve with me, but it's one that I enjoy confronting. The acting in it is just fantastic!
shareI can understand where you two are coming from. The part that hits me the hardest is where they say she should come off the chemo and go on morphine. Made me think of my mother when she was dying of lung cancer 4 years ago.
Ellen and me are a lot a like...bitter, neglectful, crazy.
:(
I'm sorry about your moms, I hope they're doing okay.
I saw this movie in the theater when it came out. My mom was a 5 year breast cancer survivor then. The scenes where the mother and daughter are confronting a possible future without mom were the most realistic and difficult for us to witness. Two years later, my mom discovered her cancer came back and had spread. I was by her side through her 4 years of constant struggle to stay alive. Endless rounds of chemo, living test by test, wondering and worrying if my dad could survive it all, several prayers and sleepless nights worrying if I'd be able to survive it.
My mom died from the cancer last July. Now I find myself caught between moving on/growing up, miles of memories, and haunted by that scene where the mom tells the daughter what to do for her one day future wedding. This movie just reminds me of all the feelings mothers and daughters have when an early end approaches.
They say children should never die before their parents. But daughters should also never have to bury their mothers before their wedding day.
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sometimes, it just does.
shareI saw this movie when it first came out and it really touched me. The dynamics between the Mother/Daughter relationship were so close to my own relationship with my Mom. Me being the career selfish daughter, and my Mom being the loving housewife and Mother who is always smiling regardless of the situation. When I first saw the movie, I cried a lot, even though my Mom did not have health problems at the time. Then, a few years after watching the film, my Mom had a stroke.. Although Stroke and Cancer are different, the situation that the family and patient go through are the same. My Mom and I became very close after her stroke, and it reminded me of the movie. Her first stroke was mild and she was able to recover 100%. Then, a month ago, my Mom had a second stroke. This time she was left paralyzed from her right side. Again, it reminded me of the movie, this time even more so, since I've had to take over my Mom's duties. It's been a month now and my Mom is still in the hospital. Even though the Doctors believe she will get through this, they have no idea when she will be able to return back home. In the meantime, I've been dealing with my own 8 hours a day career, cleaning my parents home, cooking for my Dad and brother at home, and taking over my Mom's role. My day starts at 6 am when I go to the hospital to give my Mother a shower and breakfast. I spend some time with her before I go to work. After work, I go back to my parents' home and do the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and what ever else needs to get done. My day doesn't end until about 11 pm. Although I am happy to be able to support my parents this way, I am exhausted and some days wish I could have my old life back. It's been difficult, but every time I sit with my Mom on her hospital bed and look into her eyes, I know why this is where I need to be. The relationship between Mothers and Daughters is very special and it's one to be cherished. I now want to see the movie again.
shareMy mom didn't have cancer, but she died recently after spending a month in the hospital.
This movie was on tv today, and I was watching and crying.
I miss her so much.
I made the mistake of going to see this movie with my mother. When my mother was in college, her mother got inflammatory breast cancer (this was the 70s, there was no way to treat it at that time) and my mother had to drop out of college and take care of her all by herself for the next 3 years (my mother's father had already died while she was in high school.)
So we went to this movie, and I remember sitting there, oblivious, and then Renee Zelwegger pulls Meryl Streep out of the bath tub, and she's really emaciated, you know? And I hear my mother go "That's about right" under her breath, and it suddenly hit me that I was watching my mother's story on the screen. I still can't believe she sat through the whole thing -- as soon as I heard her say that, as soon as I realized what we were watching, I was ready to leave.
I'm sorry for your losses and for those of you who have parents or family members who have it, I wish and pray that they recover.
Two close family members of mine have had cancer, and thankfully survived through it. We were lucky. My grandmother-many many years, back, before I was born. And my aunt, a few years ago. However, I wasn't too mature and stayed away from the hospital quite a lot, so I didn't realize how bad or hard it really was.
This movie hit home for me becuase it reminded me how fallible the human condition is, how a family member can become weak so quickly and pass on. Someone you love dearly. My grandmother has been ill for quite a while now...deteriorating. She's up and down a lot. It just struck that chord with me in hospital and bed scenes, because looking at Meryl Streep was reminding me of how my grandmother looked. And knowing that she could pass on, and I might not even be there to see her go...that scares me.
Needless to say, my first New Years Resolution is to consent to calling both my parents and grandparents regularly.
The only form of cancer my mom has had was skin cancer. That was 3 years ago. But my sister died of cancer when she was 9 in '93.
Last Movie Seen:Wait Until Dark
my mom is battling breast cancer for the second time in 15 years right now. I was watching this movie when she called me and told me that it was back. I cried and cried and cried. She has sought non traditonal treatments and refuses traditional methods. I have to say that she is feeling better and you don't know she is sick. The thought of her leaving this world scares the sh*t out of me. She is all I have in this world. We fight like cats and dogs but I love her very much. She has so much left to do in her life and I want her around for that. We have become a lot closer than we ever were before. Funny I'm the only person in our family who knows that she has it. She had it while I was in high school and never told a soul. Now that it is back, I know and she doesn't want anyone in the family to know. This movie really touched my heart.
shareI didn't check this board in the last few monthes.... and since i posted my mom's cancer came back AGAin! REally sucks, now I don't think i will watch this movie again because it scares me too much! I loved your posts, really. I think more moms die of cancer young than people really realise. SAd... really....
shareI have never seen this film, but yes i did have a mom with cancer.
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I just saw this on television today for the first time. I lost my mom more than five years ago after a six-month battle against the worst form of cancer there is -- pancreatic. There was one suggestion -- not done by the family in the film -- that I would actually recommend, and that is to get professional help for care at home. We didn't until near the end, and part time. It is just too much for a daughter and a father, even if the father helps more than the father in the film (and my father was 75 and legally blind).
In 2000 my father asked me to move home to care for him during his last three months. My mother was unable to do so. It was, I thought at the time, the hardest thing I had ever done. The effort ended with my giving my father ever increasing doses of morphine sulfate (on top of the Fentanyl pathes he wore), eventually far exceeding the prescribed dosage. It was not a choice easily made.
As 2006 drew to a close my mother began showing signs of what the doctor suspected could be Parkinson's disease. In October, I literally carried her in the office for her MRI and brain scan. The Neurologist explained that the film study revealed she had multiple brain tumors. He stated they were quite likely the result of a cancer thriving somewhere else in her body. He placed her on steroids to reduce the internal pressure from the tumors and an anti-siezure drug. The good doctor explained that quite often with brain cancers there is little pain but, there are always exceptions. We would wait and see. She was 83 years old and very fragile, unable to survive any surgery. Within 2 weeks she began to worsen. It was the fourth of January before Hospice was called in to help with her care. I fed her, bathed her and changed her diapers. I watched her being consumed by her cancer until I could stand it no longer. The hospice nurse told me she was approaching her final days. There was pain. Maybe not the intense physical pain my father had suffered but, enough for me to know it was time to help her, because I loved her. She had been unable to swallow for days. She could only drift in and out of a coma. Right or wrong does not enter the equation. I was motivated by my love for her. She would have done the same for me. She took her last breath on January 26th.
Don't wait to tell your parents you love them. Don't wait to show them how much they mean to you. If you wait too long, the only way you may have to express that love is one that will haunt you always.
My Mom always took care of her family. Nobody helped her. She had a husband who depended on her to "be there" and treated her like a servant. Thus he never cleared the table, none of the kids took their dishes to the sink either. Nobody helped with the setting of the table, washing of the dishes or any housework. And Mom didn't ask for any help. If she did nobody responded to her. She washed, cooked, cleaned, ironed the clothes, and nobody but nobody helped her. Well, Dad didn't help her we just followed his lead.
We took her for granted. Then one day she came down with lung cancer, had a lung removed. And then we started cooking for her, cleaning, but once she got her strength back it was the same old story. During her recovery, she had determined she wasn't going to let this cancer beat her, and she wasn't going to take a lot of things that she had in the past. She'd cook the meals but everyone had to take their dishes to the sink. Sunday night, everyone was on their own. Dad finally asked her, "What's wrong with you, you've been hanging around with "Mavis" too much. Mom didn't answer him. She lived for over 22 years on one lung which is incredible. Basically, she suffocated in the end, not an easy way to go, but for 22 years she held cancer at bay.
I was closer to Mom than Dad and I thought with her dying, I was over the biggest hurdle, but she when Dad died almost 13 years later, it was about as bad.
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He lifts me clear to the sky, you know he taught me to fly.
Bbethany7 We lost our mother to bone cancer in 1938. At 5 years I was the eldest of four children. The youngest was our sister who had just turned one. Mom was 28 years old. My most vivid memory is to recall seeing her struggle around the kitchen to prepare food for us, a difficult ordeal without her right leg, which had been amputated at the hip. My father had to struggle to feed us...it was in the midst of the Great Depression before WW2...so he worked long hours. Mom died within 4 months . We spent 3 months in our great aunt's Convent, being cared for by nuns. Within a year my father met and married an extremely courageous stepmom who took on the difficult job of raising us.
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