The Walk by Richard Paul Evans And Love Happens (the movie)

I am going ‘way out on a limb and say what usually makes me roll my eyes and cynically say, “Sure. How can he/she say that?”.

“If you read only one book this year, read this one!”

I ‘found’ this book in one of those book club catalogs that I get trying to lure me into a membership. I scan those because I am interested, as a publisher and avid reader, as to what is out there. I then check to see if I can request the book at my local library. The front cover caught my eye with the title as it portrayed the characteristics of the story.

Life is a journey. Cliché as it may seem, it is nonetheless accurate. When I have had a life-changing loss in my life, it is difficult to continue on the journey. Too often I buy into the lie that this is where I am going to live the rest of my life and so I may as well get used to it. Or I dash about almost frantically trying to find my way back to the path that I was on. Neither choice is true. My path has forever been changed but I am also not forever stuck unless I allow myself to be. Like the character, Alan, in this book, my life is not done nor does the journey stop on the last page. Alan also deals with his questions and anger toward God in a real and truthful way. The Walk is the first in a series. I look forward in expectation for what is next.

It was no coincidence that I had also requested Love Happens from my Netflix and it arrived for this weekend. There was a comparable theme between The Walk and Love Happens.

“ The death of your son has become the death of you.” – Burke Ryan, Love Happens

Burke is a self-help guru in the best and worse sense. He is a mega-conference speaker who took the large ‘life-lemon’ of the death of his wife and made it into the ‘lemonade vision’ to help others begin healing and move on with their lives. Unfortunately, he doesn’t follow his own good advice. While this movie did not even mention God, it did an excellent job of portraying the amount of hard work that is required to move through grief. For me, not bringing God into the equation is ignoring the primary issue in the “Why?” questions that must be part of the journey. However, it was wonderful to view a movie that did not take the stereotypical path on a journey that is anything but typical. Kudos to Jennifer Anniston, Aaron Eckhart, and Martin Sheen for some excellent acting.