7Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8Love never ends. … 13So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (I Corinthians 13, ESV)
Julianne Moore, in the 2005 science fiction “The Forgotten,” plays a mother, Telly Paretta. Telly, it seems, lost her 8-year old son in an airplane crash fourteen months earlier. Suddenly, she finds that all of his possessions, even pictures of him, are missing from her home. Her psychiatrist tells her that she is having false memories of a nonexistent boy. Her husband tells her the post-stress delusion arose consequent of her having a child stillborn. Even though it might cost her everything, Telly sets out to prove her son's existence and, thereby, her sanity, as well as to get him back.
At the end of the movie, Telly, the only parent who remembers the children who died, apparently, in the plane crash, confronts the president of the airline on which her son took the flight. She has already figured out that the children were abducted, but she does not understand why aliens would want the children. She discovers from the man that he is an alien using the children for an experiment. In a dramatic irony, he tells Telly the experiment was never about the children, but about the bond between mother and child. The alien notes to her that she is the only one that, somehow, would not forget.
In desperation, the alien picks Telly up by the throat and commands her to think of her first memory of her son, the moment of his birth. His talking triggers her memory. Telly remembers seeing her son for the first time. The alien steals the memory from her mind. Telly slumps to the ground. The alien looks at her and says, "Tell me about your son." Seemingly defeated, Telly says that she has no son. Satisfied, the alien starts walking away. Suddenly, something stirs in Telly. She has a flashback in which she is sitting on a bench happily stroking her stomach. She is pregnant. She sits up and says, "I had life inside me." She affirms, "I have a son, his name is Sam! You son of a bitch!"
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The alien stares in horror, realizing the failure of his experiment to break the mother and son bond. He looks desperately toward the ceiling, pleading, "I need more time." But, he is whisked through the roof and into the sky.
Telly returns back to the playground near her home and finds Sam. They hug each other. The child has no memory of the abduction.
There is much talk and song about love in our romance-saturated culture. We might, in one breath, speak of loving a certain kind of food and, then, in the next breath, speak of loving a person. “Wow, I just love Italian food!” “I love him, so much!”
“The Forgotten” addresses a bond created by a naturally divine affection and commitment. This depth of love is much more mature than much that goes under the name “love” in our culture.
Such profound love can exists, however, in varied relationships. I have enjoyed such depth of love. When we have such a love for someone, we have a sense that we are a part of something much bigger than ourselves. We are. The love has a ring of authenticity, of eternity, of nothing being able to untie the joined affection. There is a Mystery to such loving.
This is a beautiful experience. We know it as a gift given to us. This is Agape, or Divine Love, or Affection. We are fortunate in this life, if we enjoy a few of these relationships. One moment of sensing this with someone is enough to last a lifetime and more.
Whom do you love, now, with a love that has the quality of Eternity, a love given as a Gift, a love that creates blissful memories you know will last forever and more?
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