"Where The Heart Is"

(Before this article,I would like to state that this is actually the first piece i wrote today and added fuel to the inspiration provided by Neerja's blog to start my own blog)

I saw the movie “Where The Heart Is” today. I had downloaded it because I thought it was just another ‘chick flick’ which I would watch during my free time. I like watching such kind of movies because they are light-hearted and always have a happy (although predictable) ending, which leaves you feeling nice. But I was soon to be proved wrong (in a good way of course).

This movie is about a girl named Novalee Nation who is pregnant and is abandoned at the Wal Mart store in Oklahoma by her boyfriend when they were on their way to California. She starts living in the shop secretly for six weeks till she delivers her baby. In the meantime she meets Sister Husband, a religious, but promiscuous woman, Moses Whitecotten, the Wal Mart photographer and Forney Hull, the librarian, all of whom help her rebuild her life. In fact it is Forney who sees her living in the store on the night she gets her labor pains and breaks in to help her deliver the baby. After the birth of her baby, she gets national recognition as giving birth to the "Wal-mart baby"(who is later named as Americus). She also makes friends with Lexie Coop who works at the hospital, has four children and has her fair share of trouble with the opposite sex. Novalee is taken in by Sister and finally with the help of her new found friends, Novalee, who was once the homeless teen from Tennessee, becomes a successful and strong woman, and more importantly, a part of a makeshift but wonderful family she had always wanted.

The kindness shown by the strangers to Novalee is not something we get to see so often in our lives. This was the point that struck a chord with me. In a scene where Novalee and Lexie are talking, Novalee tells Lexie“ Life changes with every breath we take….We all have some meanness inside us, but we also have a lot of good in us, and the good is what is worth living for.” Today we have become so busy with trying to survive for ourselves, that we have all forgotten the very essence of our being who we are, the very essence of being human beings. We have forgotten how to love, how to help and how to care for our fellow beings. Most of us are preoccupied with what WE want, who WE love, how to lead a successful life, and all thoughts related to our selves. How often have we visited an orphanage or an old home? How often have we asked a needy man what we can do to help him? How often have we thanked God for what we have? I’m sure most of us would not want to answer that. Or maybe some people can justify themselves by saying that the world is not as grateful or fair as it should be. To all those people I would like to say what Novalee said to Lexie. We are living because of some good that is left in us, some hope, some faith and some belief to do good. Whatever happens we should not let that faint light burn out. I know it is hard, but we can start making the faint light regain its glory. We can make people hear a song out of the din of humanity. We don’t need to bring in a homeless stranger and offer him our place to stay or we don’t need to go and donate all that we have to some charity. But what we can do, are little good deeds which we are capable of doing and make people around us happy. This will make the world a better place to live in and all the breaths we take, worthwhile.

So I had picked out a “chick flick” because I did not want to watch anything which would have made me think. But this movie did exactly what I did NOT want to do and I’m thankful. It taught me that kindness and love still exist. Nothing is ever lost forever. If we fall down, we can still get up and start as if we never fell. We should never lose hope and never stop believing in ourselves because “life changes with every breath we take”.