It's been a while since a movie has made me cry so I figured I should keep track. The offending scene in particular was when Hawking is in rehab after his throat operation (he had pneunomia) and he lost his ability to speak. His wife Jane tried to get him to work on communicating through a speech board (a simple enough method for a Cambridge professor) but he just stares blankly (or at least, it seems like a blank stare because his facial muscles were paralysed from his disease by then) at her. When she doesn't give up on him and insists again, he continues to stare - but suddenly, without any warning, his face crumples and tears trickle out of his eyes. Jane drops the board and sheds tears along with him.
Obviously it is a sad scene, but it is wrenching on so many levels - and I think most audiences can relate to more than one level too. Firstly there is empathy, just on a human-to-human level, for his suffering as life continues to whack this man left right centre - as if muscular dystrophy and untimely demise isn't enough already, you have to take away his voice?! come on, Life. Then you feel the misery of the patient himself, Hawking - who was till then portrayed to have the tenacity and easy-going acceptance of an enlightened being. The tear - a sudden display of raw human emotion and despair, cracking through the stoic dam enforced by his illness. that's when you realise that Hawking is only human - he has moments of despair and desperation; when you are reminded that there is a sentient being in misery, trapped hellishly inside this crumpled, immobile frame. When you recognise the chilling irony that has sentenced one of the world's most intelligent brains to silence, until the most eternal silence of all claims him. The last sadness is the misery of a caregiver - compassion and exhaustion, love yet loneliness- and you as the outsider can't possibly imagine which emotion she feels in greater measure. When you have witnessed all the shit that Jane had to go through, pretty much on her own, yet there is no resentment -not at that point of time at least- just at its base raw human empathy.
A simple Christmas wish upon all caregivers of the world - that they may be at peace within themselves and be brave for themselves as much as others. One day I'll be a caregiver too, at least to my parents, and I hope this message will reach me again in the future if I or my loved ones have need of it. In Singapore, I feel that caregivers are getting increasing acknowledgement - but there is a fine line from lauding the caregiver to alienating the patient which we should never cross. I am curious to see how this dynamic will be portrayed in the media in the years to come. (the comms side of me coming out here). Lastly, I wish that all caregivers around the world will get, increasingly, the support and recognition they need!
