By Jake J. Nho
I don’t watch a lot of movies. I know about many of them, mainly because I read reviews in newspapers and magazines. And this is a good thing since I really hate wasting two hours watching something that is not worth the while, especially ones with lousy endings.
I cannot remember the last time I visited a cinema ― it must have been ``The Lion King” when my children were little ― and I really cannot make or afford the time to go and watch movies.
The thing is that people went and invented cable and satellite broadcasting and there are films playing all day long. I occasionally trip into some of them some of the time although I try rather hard to stop myself.
But not all movies have terrible endings. I picked up this one movie quite a while ago called ``As Good as It Gets” starring Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt.
Very simple stuff: She is a waitress and he is a successful author who has freakish habits like carrying plastic forks and knives to restaurants because he questions the hygiene of the silverware.
He goes to the restaurant where she works for breakfast ― every single day ― and keeps bumming her out with his strange demands for specific services.
It so happened that that movie was running on a Sunday morning when my wife was out picking up groceries with my daughters; I couldn’t go because I was heading out to the office despite it being the weekend.
But I had to stay and watch the remainder of the movie. At the end ― Hunt thinks Nicholson is creepy ― he comes out and says something like
``People who come to the restaurant do not get the fact that they are being served by the most wonderful woman in the world. And I am the luckiest guy in the world because I get that.”
I had to keep going through the end of the movie because I wanted to hear those words again, about how a ``freaky” person can be so honest with his feelings, he being around 60 years of age (in the movie).
This got me thinking: I am approaching 50 now (in a few months) and I cannot remember the last time that I told my wife that I love her, which I absolutely do, although, honestly, not 100 percent of the time.
I tell my daughters that I love them all the time ― not always to their
liking ― especially at the end of phone conversations, something I did to my wife a long time ago. We have been married for more than 20 years and I suppose things change over time, tend to take things for granted.
But some things should not change. My wife and I quarrel all the time, over timid little things and some serious issues, but we have always been able to work out our differences.
So watching that movie was special since there could not be two people who are so different yet found common grounds, like Nicholson finding a physician ― the husband of his publisher ― for her son who was suffering from a rare illness.
They have such different backgrounds and lifestyles but Nicholson and Hunt found the courage to overcome their differences ― over some corny phrases ― but they did anyway.
This got me thinking again; life is too short to not tell the ones that you care so much about that you love them more than life itself. I keep learning that life is shorter than you think.
Happiness is not such a far-fetched concept. Some people do not know it when they have it and others choose to ditch it away, not knowing really what they are getting themselves into.
I, for one, can say this for sure; I know I have been blessed with meeting the love of my life ― that would be my wife Hee-sun ― on the No. 74 bus in 1987, getting married and having our two beautiful daughters.
As Nicholson said in the movie ― I recommend it to everyone ― I get what my family means to me, and I am the luckiest guy in the world for knowing what I got.
Jake J. Nho is a career journalist and a marketing executive who can be reached at jakenho@hotmail.com.