Gran Torino

Gran Torino this evening. Very good movie. I highly recommend it. I will say this, I was a bit of a wet rag after the movie ends. Near the end of the movie, Walt (Clint Eastwood’s character) finally goes to confession – as per his recently-deceased wife’s last wishes. One of the things he confesses is that he’s got two grown sons and he doesn’t know either of them. In light of how the movie ends, this has a lot of impact on me. It’s made me realize that I do have a relationship with my father and that I’m very grateful to have such a relationship. Dad and I haven’t always gotten along. In fact, I remember one conversation he and I had back in my angry teenage years where he said, “I love you, Ian. I love you, but I don’t like you very much.” Shortly after this discussion, I had the opportunity to move out of the house and a funny thing happened. Well, two funny things really. First, I grew up, and second, my relationship with Dad got much better. Kinda funny how that happened, huh? I love my dad dearly. I’m very grateful to have been given the family I have. I’m extremely grateful to have the relationships I have with dad and the rest of my family. I really can’t put it into words. I have quite a few close friends who come from some fairly dysfunctional families, and I can’t imagine growing up in their shoes. I may not have liked the fact that I felt (note the clarifier: I) that my folks were hard-asses (they were. yes, really!), but I needed it. I had a very strong family unit growing up. I may not always reflect it, but I did. And while there may have been some stupid situations that I got myself into, I don’t think I’d want to change the circumstances of my upbringing too much if I had the opportunity to do it all over again. <sigh> Yeah, I’m sounding like a sentimental wet rag here, but it’s what’s going through my head at the moment. Dad, I know you read this. I love you. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. 🙂 To everybody else who’s made it this far… thanks for reading and putting up with me. Thanks for visiting and Keep Coming Back!!!]]>