Hunger Games

Hunger Games 11.24.13

I wanted to see the opening night premier, but the tickets were already sold out by the time my bank lifted the block of my debit car from the car theft. I wanted to take Kendon and make it a family outing, brother-sister time, but he turned me down to go with Eric Mattox. I felt hurt, but didn’t say anything. Maybe the time with a godly young man would help Kendon in his struggling spiritual walk.

I couldn’t get the memory of that night watching the first Hunger Games movie with you out of my mind. Do you remember? Tinseltown? The sweet kisses during the movie? You holding my hand and walking me to my car? The tears that flowed because of how deeply the reality of the movie stirred me? It reminded me of the Orange Revolution. Of my teenage years, and the stress in those days, the fear. You held my face and kissed the tears and said, “I don’t like it when you cry from a movie. It makes me sad.” For some reason, this memory is so vivid for me.

I ended up going with Tim March, my old Panera buddy from the line and long-time friend. He had been there for me through all the years and I was grateful he came to Friend Day as well. We ended up at Penn Mall. And you would love the seats, Levi, they are amazing. They are plush leather and recline. It was truly awesome.

Although I’m sure the ticket boy looked at us as a couple (Justin had been invited but he bailed) it feels less like a date to me than any other time I’d been at the movies. Because I wasn’t really in the present, listening to his conversation. I was in the past, one year ago, at a different theatre at the northwest edge of town. It was colder then. And darker. And more special.

And the boy I loved kissed my tears away and held my face and whispered he loved me. And he risked everything to be there for me that night, and it was my fault for breaking the rules. I demanded from his so much, and then I went and destroyed everything.

Unlike the heroine of the movie, there is no second chance at love. People’s hearts only harden. At least, that’s how it’s been for me. Andrea. Brad. Levi.

I watched the massacre and public beatings in the movie and thought of home, of Ukraine. Levi would never have understood how true the scenes hit home for me. I’d lived there. And I saw the heroine screaming through the nightmares, and I knew what that felt like. Because you can move on, but there are experiences in our lives that change us, scar us, forever. It’s just how it work. At least for me. I wonder if anything would ever be enough to change you forever, Levi? Besides your dad dying. Because apparently, death is what it takes to move your heart.

What a dark, hopeless thought.

Your star,

Rigel