Philomeana

I had a phone call from dear friends - "Would you like to go to Pitt Meadows with us and have dinner afterwards." They had seen the movie once before and thought it was one I'd like.
 It's true you know - there are people like this who will pick up their friend and drive over 30 kilometers to see a film a second time because they think it will please their friend.
I said yes because I try to be like the lady who led a wonderful life and when asked what she thought made her life so great, replied "I always said YES".
But the snow came across with the wind like a Winnipeg snow as I sat waiting to hear the phone ring to say they wouldn't risk going in that weather. But it didn't ring so I went to the lobby to wait for them to come and they did.
And the film is "Philomena" with Judi Dench.
Terrific acting.
It's about a single girl who had her baby in a nun's building. The baby was looked after by the nuns till he was adopted out. Many of the babies were bought by Americans as happened to this girl's son.
As the girl was a Catholic she lived with tremendous guilt and a yearning to know at least if the boy had been happy and the movie is about trying to trace him.
The nuns were shown to be callous about the girls they took in and they showed disgust with their pregnancies.


And I remembered when I had my first baby in the Catholic hospital in Cornwall Ontario. I went into labour when I was five and a half months pregnant. When I was in so much pain the sister said to me, "You had your fun and now you have to pay for it." So I know cruelty can happen.
I didn't know the baby had lived for two hours and that they had baptised her.
As Ted and I waited to leave the hospital a nun came towards us holding a shoe box and said "This is your baby, you'll have to bury her."


Tonight my friend talked about the Butter-box babies and how on the east coast there were cases of babies being born to un-wed mothers and a lot of them died and as butter-boxes were cheap they were buried in those boxes. And my friend knows of a person who lived in that place.


Anyway, we drove home without having to get stranded on the road with snow like most of Canada is going through at the moment and we had dinner at good old ABC restaurant, discussed the film and here I am telling you about it but doing a lot of thinking as well. signed thinking Doris