You Are the Wind Beneath My Wings

Yesterday, I went to the beach with Nosukii and her family, but I’m not going to blog about that right now. Probably tomorrow. Why you ask? Because I just finished watched the 1988 movie “Beaches” with Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey. I have never cried so much just from watching one movie. Even Forrest Gump or the corpse bride can’t make me cry this hard. I was freaking sobbing. Like loud sobbing. I’m so glad no one was home today (I was supposed to go to my grandma’s today but I “suddenly developed a headache”- if you catch my drift) that would have been so embarassing: Me sitting on my bed, curled up against the wall, box of tissues by my side, sobbing. After watching that, my “Happy Blog Post Time” kinda died.

Anyways, the movie is about two girls who meet once when they are 11. C.C. is a loud and flamboyant star in the making (Midler) and Hillary is a prim and proper girl from a rich family (Hershey). They get to know each other and exchange addresses so they can communicate by letters, which is what they do until they are 21. The movie is basically what they go through in life. They fall in love with the same man, get mad at each other and don’t talk for years (happens like twice), reconcile, go through divorces, C.C. becomes a broadway star, and then loses it all; Hillary catches her husband cheating on her (also pregnant with his child at the time), C.C. rises back to fame and becomes a singer, Hillary has her baby and discovers she has a heart disease. They also go through the movie being jealous of one another. Hillary is beautiful, poised and smart, which C.C. isn’t, and C.C. is energetic, fun and was sucessful in following her dreams, which Hillary never was/could do. But they manage to stay best friends for 30 years.

The title Beaches refers to the beach house that C.C., Hillary and Hillary’s daughter, Victoria, stay at during the summer, and also the beach the two girls met on (my mother says she read somewherethat the title comes from a quote from “The Princess Bride”. Don’t know how true that is, but i’ll look it up later and edit this). Hillary’s heart condition gets worse (Hillary fainted and had to be sent to the emergency room) and she wants to go to the beach and get away from the hospital. Hillary is so weak she can’t do much and already knows she is going to die so she ignores her friends and acts cold to C.C. because she is jealous that she is still full of life and that Victoria would rather be with her.

Then Hillary dies, and in her will she leaves Victoria in the care of C.C., who wants to be a mom, but thinks she’s too selfish to raise a child. Victoria wants to stay with her though, and they they leave to finish the postponed concert (when hillary was sick C.C. took care of her).

Okay now the breakdown of my sobbing: I started to cry when Hillary passes out and she look all deathly and says her daughter can’t see her like that. I cried until Hillary’s funeral, where C.C sings “Wing Beneath my Wings”. I settled down a bit after this. Then in the ending scene where C.C. is telling Victoria they story of how she and Hillary became friends, you hear the voice over of the two when they were young:

“Will you write to me C.C.?”

“Sure. I mean we’re friends right?”

And then I started bawling all over again. Gawd I’m a sap.

Now I can never listen to “Wind Beneath My Wings” again. I had never seen the movie, but I’ve known the song my whole life. I tried to listen to it after I watched the movie and I started crying again…

I will blog about the trip tomorrow, I’m just not in the mood. Going through “post-movie depression”