I'd seen it twice before, the first time on my flight to LA -- solo, hormonal and bloated. I couldn't even finish watching it as I cried so hard I started doing that hiccuppy thing in between sobs, waking up the old man sitting in the aisle across from me who shot me an annoyed look. The second time was on my flight back home from LA, and once again, the hiccuppy-bawling came back but this time, I had my sunglasses on. Then I realized I resumbled the douchebags I saw at a dimsum restaurant I went to, where some Russian girl and her boyfriend had sunglasses on and a bottle of white wine at their table at 10:00AM. I promptly removed them to reveal my blodshot eyes and puffy face, praying no one would notice.
"Are you alright?!," the guy sitting next to me asked, a look of shock on his face. Good guy, coincidentally Canadian.
"Yes. Fine, thank you. Sad movie, hah hah." I mustered embarassingly, searching my purse for my Blackberry. I spent the next hour looking at 10 pictures of my dog on my phone, figuring out the best one to set as my background image.
If you're a dog owner, you understand that your dog is your kid--minus the incommunicable taunts of screaming and crying, sporadic opportunities for two hours of sleep for months and piles of toxic diapers.
And so we popped in the DVD, chilled on the couch with B-dawg (our doggy) and for an hour and a half (minus the first 30 minutes of happy lovey doveyness, you know, the stuff that makes your boyfriend gaze over at you with the look of love while he lovingly squeezes your hand), I watched my bf drench his face in his own tears while he hugged B-dawg as close as he could, progressively tighter as each scene became more and more sad, to the point where B-dawg was kicking and wiggling so hard to get out of Daddy's death grip that he let out a faint yelp.
"Babe, you're weirding him out," I pointed out softly. B-dawg and Daddy turned to look at me, both with big wet puppy dog eyes.
"It's so sad," Daddy pouted (ooh, I think I just came up with a fitting reference for the bf!), lowering his head to plant a kiss on B-dawg's big head.
B-dawg took this opportunity to jump off the couch and make a beeline for anywhere that wasn't anywhere near Daddy, shooting us a "dude you guys are toootally freakin' me out" look.
"Maybe he needs to go sulk. I think it's probably quite sad for him too," I suggested, stalling for B-dawg. Perhaps now, he'd found a nice pile of dirty laundry in our bedroom to hide in, away from the death grip.
Daddy pulled me in closer to him, and I became his B-dawg replacement for the remainder of the movie, his wet tears atop my hair as I dabbed away at my own face with his t-shirt. And all at once, I finally understood why my mom said she never wanted to get me a dog.
"It's too sad when they die, it's the saddest thing ever, " Mom said.
I refused to believe her. At the time, that phrase had no meaning to me whatsoever asI was bitter, bitchy and resentful after 16 years of begging for a four-legged friend with no dice.
In the end, as you may presume, Marley dies from old age and a slew of moral lessons and symbolic meanings are understood. And Daddy continued to weep, heading straight to the bathroom after the movie ended to clean his face of wet tears and unclog his snotty nose from the cryfest marathon he had just endured.
And all at once, I finally understood why I love him so much.
