Fighting for your life

2 movies I saw recently shared a common theme. The theme they share is something I'd call the theme 'fighting for your life.'

The first was the Farrah Fawcett documentary 'Farrah's Story' This documentary follows Farrah as she seeks advanced treatment for a serious form of cancer that is ravaging her body. The second movie was Terminator Salvation starring Christian Bale. This is the latest in the Terminator series and it seemed to focus a bit more on the human interest element than others in the series.

So many of us joke about what would happen if we were on life support. We say 'Pull the plug! I don't want to suffer or be a burden on anyone else!' This is an easy joke to say but when we find ourselves or with a loved one in that situation it's not so easy or funny.

In Waiting for a Miracle, Farrah Fawcett takes us on a journey to Germany and takes us into the medical offices while she is receiving painful and aggressive chemotherapy and other treatments. To see her frail body wincing in pain as she bravely does whatever she can do to beat this disease is inspiring yet heartbreaking. This bravery in the face of hardship, this will to live no matter what is really something to watch.

When someone is so used to a way of life that consisted of travel, working out, and other enjoyable pursuits, one would expect that having those things taken away would make you bitter, resentful, or depressed and ready to give up. This is not so with Farrah who draws much strength from her faith and her mission to show the world the true face of a cancer survivor.

One of the saddest struggles really had little to do with the cancer itself. It had to do with the paparazzi. Farrah's entire being was locked into this life and death struggle against cancer and what do the paparazzi print? "Farrah wants to give up and die!" This distortion is heartbreaking and totally wrong. Seeing Farrah struggle with this lie being printed about her as she is already struggling with the cancer makes you realize just how uncaring and evil the tabloids can be. Every bit of strength that one can elicit needs to be focused on her fight against illness...not against the lies of strangers.

As Farrah reads from the journals she's meticulously kept over the years, we learn that she is the only remaining member of her family other than her aging father. One of the reasons she is fighting so hard for her life is so that she doesn't have to leave him alone with no one to care for him.

This selfless need to live another day makes more sense when one looks at it not so much as a selfish wish.

In the movie,

"Terminator Salvation" , [SPOILER ALERT! DO NOT READ ON IF YOU ARE GOING TO SEE THE MOVIE!] we see the same mindset. As we try to figure out why a death row prisoner who has been executed and brought back to life as 1/2 man 1/2 machine we see more and more this same selfless pursuit of salvation through service to others. This all culminates in the gift of life as this character decides to give up his heart for an organ transplant so that John Connor can live.

It might be a stretch to see the similarity in these two movies but there it is. This gives me a little insight into the right to life movement. There is certainly some of that shared idea that all life is precious. The main difference which is key is that in both of the above cases, the decisions made were by the individual. There was really no outside pressure driving either 'person' to do what they did and to make the hard choices that they made.