The other night while my husband was out for the evening, I watched Terms of Endearment with the girls. Well, I started watching by myself, then after their various baths and showers they each wandered in and pretty soon we were all piled on the couch watching together. It has to be one of the great mother daughter movies made, really. I had forgotten what a funny movie it was too, I mean I saw it first in the theatre back in 1983, when I was about 16. So we're all comfy together, and the kids are laughing hard, and they brought out the hairbrushes and proceed to work on my hair, which has to be one my most favorite things to have done, and I'm really enjoying the moment, and then I realize, oh shit, Debra Winger's at the doctor's office, and he's about to find the lumps in her armpit, and it's about to become a really NOT funny mother daughter movie, so I suddenly sit up and tell the girls it's bedtime, which they totally don't get, I mean what's the panic mom, and I tell them nothing, just it's late, and I'm remembering how that first time I saw the movie I cried so hard that we had to sit in the theatre long after the credits had rolled and the lights were on until I pulled myself together, and what a miserable date I was for the rest of that evening, and so I really better get these girls into bed NOW. Whew. Which I do, although they were puzzled, and I know Kate suspected something because she kept asking "what HAPPENS to the mom, what HAPPENS???" and I tuck them in and tell them we'll all watch it together again one day when they're a bit older, all the way to the end. Because I realize, as I go back to the tv and watch the rest and bawl my eyes out just like the first time I ever saw it, that it's not that I am trying to shelter them from the fact that Debra Winger DIES and the children have to go live with their grandmother, but in truth because I know they would be more distressed to see how upset the movie makes ME. Doesn't really matter what I'm crying about so much, just that it would totally freak them out to see me sobbing like that.
Anyway, good decision I think. One day I will watch it again with them I hope, just because it is a great movie. Hope I didn't spoil the ending for anyone....oops:)
By the way, I don't get why it's called terms of endearment anyway. They don't use nicknames or anything like that, so I why? It's based on a book by Larry McMurtry, so I will have to read that to figure it out I guess, unless anyone else knows something I don't?
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