You is smart, You is kind, You is important...

I'm ready to speak on what this book, this story means to me. Like many others, I read this book before watching the movie. Isn't it funny how some of us get sensitive because we read the book, and we feel like we own it and have to tell everybody..."I READ THE BOOK BEFORE I WATCHED THE MOVIE, AND THE BOOK IS BETTER!" Don't listen to us book lovers, we can be a little possessive sometimes. I know how to share, though.

I read several different reviews on this movie. Usually, I ward off all reviews until I watch movies for myself. Being that I already read the book and loved it, I felt it was safe to allow other's opinions to enter my realm. Like always, I'm amazed at how we all can read the same book or watch the same movie but walk away with a different experience. Sometimes it's annoying to me. But, other times I love being one of the ones that gets it...just that little different twist from the story. Sometimes people and their academic worldly smarts gets in the way of receiving something beautiful. But, I understand we all will not think the same. We will understand a story the way it speaks to us personally depending on where we are in our life walk.

Some of you know that I've been going through a tough, lengthy divorce along with a custody battle. With this hurtful process my writing has suffered. When I have a hard time writing, I turn to books. The relationship between Aibileen and Mae Mobley touched my core. Aside from the civil rights movement, that was significant in this story, it was simply their relationship that moved me to tears. I cried while watching this movie like I did when I saw "Passion of the Christ" .. you guessed it, the ugly cry. Sometimes I'm proud to be ignorant about certain things. The ignorance I have of history's meaningless chronological timings of events..Or my openminded perception of a white woman writing this story, helped me take so much more in from it. Does it really matter if the story was accurate with the timing of Medger Evers' death? Does it matter that a white woman wrote this story? To me, in this story it was only significant because it allowed the book that was written, with the help of the maids, gain more exposure.  For racists and narrow minded people to see the world from a maid's eyes who lived in Jackson, Mississippi during the 60's, was the very foundation of the story. There was no white hero. And no, Aibileen wasn't the black hero.

Aibileen reared Mae Mobley. She loved Mae Mobley. She encouraged Mae Mobley. Every chance I get I try my hardest to tell my daughter wonderful, truthful, positive things about herself, like Aibileen in this story. My daughter's father does not agree with the way I care for our daughter. He criticizes me about every single move or decision I make for our daughter. My babygirl is in the middle of this battle and my heart hurts for her. Instead of preparing her to answer questions her social worker may ask her, I simply tell my daughter, "baby, just tell them your truth". Things have gotten so bad that I've even given serious thought to allowing her father to have full custody. I want her stress to stop. I want her confusion to stop. I don't want her to feel unsure about how much we love her and want her to be a beautiful woman one day.

I won't give a lot away about the story. I hope you all will read and/or watch the movie. Read and watch with an open mind. Of course, for the movie, they made some adjustments but it didn't take away from the messages. Well, it didn't for me.