I just saw this really beautiful french movie, The Butterfly.
Everything about this movie was beautifully done. I'm not very good at telling the gist of a story so that others get excited about it, but I'll do my best.
The little girl acted so real. She played an 8-year-old named Elsa who's neglected by her very young mother. The older gentleman who lives downstairs is a butterfly collector who's on the search for a very particular butterfly, the Isabelle, so that he can keep a special promise he made many years before.
Elsa is left alone all day and all night, so she runs away and manipulates the butterfly collector into taking her with him.
As they search for the butterfly, they learn more about each other and he becomes the grandfather-figure she never had. His old wounds begin to heal, and he gets more meaning in his life. He even becomes the mentor for the mother who's not a bad person; her parents neglected her too.
It made me think how important it is for older ones to take a wholesome interest in youths, especially nowadays when families are breaking down.
We've lived here a few years, but I just unpacked some pictures. This was one of them. My friend Lorraine, who was old enough to be my grandmother, bought this for me when I was ten-years-old. She and my mom and I were in the mall, and I remember gushing over these watercolors of old-fashioned women in Victorian/country homes.
(The signature on the picture says it's by H. Downing Hunter.)
Then Lorraine suggested my mom and I go to another store ahead of her and when she joined us she had gotten me one of the watercolors and my mom a picture that she liked.
Years later I remember going to her house for Bible study. It was so calm and quiet and orderly. We would walk around in her garden. Sometimes she would take me out for frozen yogurt or we'd go for a drive or she'd take me on her errands. I remember those times fondly, especially when I look at the picture.
