life – if all else fails…use a hammer

When I saw the preview for The Secret Life of Walter Mitty my first thought was, “Not another Ben Stiller film.” (I feel the same way about him that most people apparently feel about Adam Sandler – I’ll grudgingly admit he had made a couple of good films, but most of the time he just irritates me.) However, thirty seconds later I was, “I’ve got to see this movie!” It did not disappoint.

The film is based on the short story with the same name written by American author James Thurber in 1939. Thurber’s Mitty is an elderly gentleman driving his wife to the hairdresser’s. During the trip he has five episodes where he daydreams that he’s busy with something else. Specifically, in each daydream he is someone doing something exceptional, each time inspired by the mundane activity he’s performing in the real world. Continue reading “KokkieH Reviews The Secret Life of Walter Mitty“ →

It was a beautiful day, it was a terrible day. It was a day of celebration, it was a day of mourning. It was a day of great joy, it was a day of deepest grief.

There were two funerals in South Africa on Tuesday. One was for a great man who had touched the lives of millions. He had passed away at a ripe old age, having achieved in his lifetime what he had set out to do. He died peacefully in his bed, surrounded by his loved ones. And while we are all sad that he is now gone, Tuesday was marked by a spirit of celebration as we remembered a man the like of which comes around perhaps once in a generation, if we’re lucky.

The other funeral was for a mother and daughter who were violently ripped from this earth in a senseless accident on the highway. Their deaths were sudden and unexpected, their lives incomplete. There was no celebration at their funeral. Instead, there was wailing and sobbing, and the daughter’s former colleagues singing hymns as the coffin descended into the Earth to remind her loved ones and themselves that God was there, even if it didn’t feel like He was.

I attended the other funeral. Continue reading “A Tale of Two Funerals” →