Whispering Wyrd

I have an all-time favorite movie. It’s not flashy and the pace is slow. It’s a Japanese movie called Twilight Samurai. I’ve seen it many times over the years, and these days it moves me to tears every time I watch it. Now that I’m sober and clean I understand its message more deeply than ever before.

The movie is about a low ranking samurai who’s just trying to survive life’s hardships. His wife dies after a long illness, leaving him to care for two young daughters and an elderly mother with dementia. He struggles financially, is looked down on by others, and has no desire for status or combat. He says he’d rather be a farmer if he could choose.

To the outside world, he appears unlucky. Poor and unimportant. He’s a man with little to no standing.  But to those who really knew him, he was rich in everything that mattered the most.

His daughters were his whole world. He loved them, encouraged them, and gave them the best of everything he had. Later, he reconnects with a childhood sweetheart, and love comes back to his life. Though the hardships continue and tragedy eventually comes, the lasting message of the story is clear… his life was full because it was grounded in love. That truth exists in every time and every place on earth.

Some people may look at someone’s life from the outside and see only struggle, loss, or a lack. But the people living that life may feel deeply blessed because of family, love, and the bonds they share. Money, status, prestige, and other people’s opinions can seem so important, until you realize they aren’t at all the things that matter most in the end.

The most important thing to that lowly samurai was his family. Everything else was secondary. That speaks to me and really moves me.

Despite the mistakes of my past, despite alcoholism and addiction, I am grateful beyond words that I have great relationships with my sons and with the love of my life, my wife. We create new memories these days. Good memories… healing memories.

That is the legacy I want to leave behind. Not wealth, not status, and certainly not the approval of strangers. I want my family to know that I loved them more than anything in this world. That they were the center of my heart. That no matter how many times I failed in the past, I kept trying, I recovered, and I spent the rest of my life showing them the love that was always there.

All I want now is peace, the love of my family, and to continue healing. If the people I love remember me as someone who truly loved them, that will be enough for me.

Amituofo
~Buck