Express what you're feeling, at any length

[ednbarby]

Welcome, Angela!  Hope you find some respite here from the trolls (and they are terrible) at IMDb.  Many of us here are, in fact, refugees from the BBM board there, who've found this place in our travels over the last two years since first seeing Brokeback Mountain and being hit like a ton of bricks by it.

Now I have that feeling once again, but this loss is real.  Like you, I still can't believe he's gone.  I see his face on covers of magazines with "1979 - 2008" in the caption and feel as if I'm still having a very long, very realistic nightmare.  If I feel this way, I can't begin to imagine how people who truly knew him, who were close to him, are feeling.

When an actor like James Stewart or Jack Lemmon passes after a relatively long life and full career, of course you feel sad that they're gone.  But to lose one who was so young and still had so many more extraordinary performances, let alone so many more rich life experiences, in him is devastating on a whole other level.

And now to hear that he is not being universally revered for his performance in Brokeback as I had hoped but being reviled by some - that these people even have and share such hateful, ugly, really insane thoughts, infuriates me.  So I guess I'm somewhere between denial and anger.  But my anger isn't directed at him for leaving the world too soon - it's at everyone else who can't or won't show some respect for one of the greatest actors who ever lived.  It pissed me off watching the SAG Awards the other night that everyone was smiling and laughing on the red carpet as if nothing had happened.  I understand that life goes on, and that there's a whole world of people who don't even know Heath Ledger existed (I pity them, by the way).  But these were his fellow actors!!!  What the fuck??!!  Show some Goddamned respect!!!

(See where that anger comes in?)

[Katie77]

Thank you for this thread.......I need to get something out, before it sits in the pit of my stomach.......I dont even care if anyone reads this, I just need to get it out somewhere.

A week has passed and I thought I had been through all the initial stages of grief, that we are told are normal......and today, at last, the sadness ddn't seem as painful as it has done on the previous days....maybe Im getting used to it, maybe its because now, there is no doubt that this is all real, not like last week, when it felt like i was watching a sad movie and Heath was only just playing the part of someone who died in it....I know now its not a movie, that its real, and for some reason, once I accepted that, I started to move on.

Whereas in the early days, the only thing that consumed my thoughts was Heath, yesterday and today I had other things going through my mind, I still thought of him a lot, but he wasnt the ONLY thing I thought about, I started to joke around again in some of the threads, had a giggle at some funny things, and OMG it felt so good to be laughing again.

The fact that it is not all over the TV and the news now, has certainly helped, although I know there is more yet to come...I'm not sure if he is home yet and know that when he does arrive, the media will once again erupt, there will be more on the funeral and then, of course, the reports of the autopsy are also not far off, so that too, is going to make the headlines again.......I dread it all, just want them to let our boy rest in peace.

I did a silly thing tonight, I started to watch BBM again.......two of the movie channels on our cable tv has been showing it every day, for the past week....I sat and watched it three nights ago, then, when I was still gripped by the breathless sadness and disbelief of what had happened to Heath....I watched it differently, it was even sadder, Ennis seems to have another dimension of sadness than he had before, anyway I watched the movie all the way through the other night and openly cried and unashamedly felt as sad as I needed to feel.

But tonight was dfferent, I was in a happier mood, a more light hearted mood, I even made a joke with my husband, when he said "I dont know how you can watch a movie so many times", and I answered "I never get sick of it"....I laughed and said "I know it all off by heart,I know every word they are going to say, I even know WHY they say every word they are going to say"....he knew I was referring to the discussions we have here at Bettermost, and just shook his head, and smiled, and went off to bed.....leaving me to watch the movie once again.

And then, it happened.....i was watching it and all of a sudden I was frozen...staring at the screen, I dont think I was blinking, I was just frozen as I watched it, I still had the smile on my face from the humourous remarks I had just made to my husband, but my mind and my insides were in a state of gloom and  stunned agony.....and then along with all that,I kept looking at Heath (and it was Heath I was looking at, it wasn't even Ennis, it was Heath), and I felt so dam guilty.....i felt guilty that I was watching him being alive, but knowing he now was not, as if I knew something so private that even he didnt know himself and I felt guilty because I knew it and he didnt....I dont even know if that describes it properly, these words are just spilling out as they come to me.....I dont know what was worse, the guilt or the gloom I was feeling, maybe one was causing the other, I guess they were......This guilt was consuming me, I wasnt taking any notice of the movie, I was just sitting there feeling guilty.

I knew I had to turn the movie off, knew I could not sit there for two hours feeling like this, so I thought ahead, to when I would do it....I'v always loved the reunion scene....I felt happy for them in that scene...I would watch it till then....turn it off on a happy note, and thats what I did.

I changed the channel and found a comedy....not that Im watching it, I'm writing this, emptying it out, tring to find words that describe my thoughts....i dont even know if it makes sense, I just know I had to get it out of my system, I didnt want to try to sleep with all this racing through my mind, I dont want it to be the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning........

I liked it that I was moving on, I want to keep moving.....it doesnt mean I've forgotten, it doesnt mean it still isnt fair, still isnt sad, still isnt so tragic....it is still all of that....and I hate it, hate it, hate it......but I want to feel happy, want to feel good, I dont want to go back to what I was feeling a week ago.....

This has helped......thank you for this thread.....

[Artiste]

I appreciate your comment katie! And that of others too!

Keep care... as we are all still sad. Sure, we will never forget Heath and that is great!!

It is great to come back to smiles, to laugh... as Heath liked to smile and to laugh too - remember his joys !! May I suggest!

He varied his life and enjoyed it, and he would want us to do so; I feel, if I may say!

Did you see my two cat clips my niece sent?

Hugs!!

[Kelda]

welcome susiebk

[souxi]

Thank you - this seems like a great forum.

Hi susie, welcome to Bettermost. We all understand how you feel about Heaths death here. We all pretty much feel the same. None of us can beleive it, even now and I don,t think we ever will. I watched 10 Things I hate about you a few nights ago, and it got to the part where Heath sang, and I just howled. I couldn,t beleive I,d never see that funny, talented handsome man again. It,s such a tragic waste of such a young life. He had so much more to do with his life, so much more to give. He should have been around for years more yet, to see Matilda grow up, make more moves, direct like he was going to. Now he,ll never do any of it. We,ll miss him forever.

[ednbarby]

Welcome, Susie.

I'm still having trouble believing he is gone, too.

Just yesterday, my husband, son and I were in the midst of a long drive back from North Carolina to Florida, and a state trooper had a car pulled over on the side of the road.  The driver of the car was actually out talking to the trooper, not the other way around, so, come to think of it, I think he was someone whose car had broken down and he had called for help (the trooper's lights weren't flashing or anything).  He was the spitting image of Heath, in every way.  The traffic slowed around where they were stopped, as it does in case of possible rubber-necking action (stupid people), so I got a good look at him as he turned from the trooper's driver-side window to return to his car at front.  He was dressed exactly as one would imagine Heath would be dressed making a cross-country driving trip - very comfortably.  And he had a couple of visible tattoos on his forearms.  I was struck with a "What if..." thought.  I know it's not possible, but it was a very comforting thought, just the same, if just for a moment.  Then I was heartbroken all over again when the reality hit me.

[Fran]

Welcome to BetterMost, susiebk!

It is so hard to accept that he is truly gone.  I can't even begin to imagine how his loved ones must feel.

My thoughts exactly.  His poor family and close friends.  It must be so hard for them now. As awful as we've felt about Heath's passing, their pain has to run deeper than ours.  What a loss for them... and for us, too.

[Fran]

Thanks for the welcome.  Glad to be here.

I think about the people who Heath left behind a lot.  While we go on with our lives, they will be feeling the pain for a long time to come.  I don't imagine a parent ever truly gets over losing a child.  It is not the natural way of things.  It is so sad for Matilda that she will not know her daddy, who clearly loved her so very much.

And it has to be especially hard for his sister Kate, with whom Heath seemed very close.  She mentioned that he just to call her from wherever he happened to be in the world.  I read somewhere where Heath was sad that he was on location -- I think for BBM -- because he couldn't be in Perth when his sister's twins were born.  To me, that just seems so sweet that he wanted to be there.  What a great brother he must have been!

[ptannen]

I am in a Toastmasters' Club where we practice public speaking.  In the last two years I have presented several speaches about Brokeback Mountain and my reaction to it.  I gave the lastest one Wednesday.  The purpose of this speech was to "Uplift the Spirit."  I titled my speach "Live Life to the Fullest.  It is about how I feel inspired by Heath Ledger to live my life to the fullest:

Victor Hugo once wrote:

“Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time.”

The actor Heath Ledger, who recently died at age 28, due to the accidental overdose of prescription drugs, lived life to the fullest and did not waste any time.

When he was only ten, he had his first acting experience, starring in a school production of Peter Pan.  He was also an avid chess player and won a state junior chess championship that same year.  At age 16 he left school to pursue an acting career.  He drove across Australia with his best friend, from his home in Perth, to Sydney, with less than a dollar in his pocket. He never went to acting school and never had acting classes or lessons. The next year he returned to Perth to be in the TV series Sweat, which was his first regular role on a television show.

In his short 11 year career, he was in four TV shows and 20 movies.  He received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of Ennis del Mar in Brokeback Mountain.  In all, he received 14 acting nominations and awards, including Golden Globes, BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild, and MTV.

I also try to make the most of my life and not waste any time, since I realize that I do not know how much time I will have.  It may be less than I would like. . . .  My father had a heart attack at age 53 and died the next day.  My maternal grandmother never made it past 32.  One of my nephews died in an auto crash when he was 19. . . .    On the other hand, my mother and all of her siblings lived into their nineties. . .  So I really don’t have a clue as to how long I will live!  In reality, none of us do.

As part of living his life to the fullest, Heath Ledger took risks.  As we all know, this can be very difficult. In an interview about the film Brokeback Mountain, he said:

“Playing Ennis was a very difficult decision because it scared the hell out of me. And I didn't want to kiss Jake Gyllenhaal. And then I just felt like that's probably why I should do it, because I feel like I further myself if I'm constantly testing myself.”

“Brokeback Mountain is a story of love and it's a story between two people. If people can't get over that and just accept it as a story, then that's their problem. I'm big enough and brave enough to do it.”
“In order to evolve as an actor, you have to be fearless enough to allow yourself room for error.”

Although Heath welcomed professional challenge, he did not seek fame.  All he wanted was to act because he loved it, but didn't want to be a star.  He rejected the trappings and attention of Hollywood and attempted to live an ordinary artist’s life.  He told an interviewer that

“I don't think about the attention and I don't dwell on it. I just show up for work and live my normal life.”

Heath Ledger actually stood out in Hollywood for his lack of ego and pretension.

One interviewer said that Ledger seemed unusually impassioned as he spoke about life.  He carried his roles off with commitment and true feeling. 

He said that his

“parents had the attitude of letting their kids grow up and discover things for themselves and be happy with themselves. They really provided me with a comfortable environment for just being who you were, regardless, and not trying or wanting to be anything else. I guess that's how they pushed me out into the world, and from there I just did that, and found my own lifestyle and way of living.”

Ironically, the character Heath Ledger is most well known for, Brokeback Mountain’s Ennis del Mar was his exact opposite.  Ennis’s was unable to live the life he truly wanted.  He could only go off occasionally to spend time with his true love, Jack Twist.  Jack’s reaction was

“Never enough time, never enough.”

So although his life was unexpectedly cut short, Heath Ledger can inspire us all not to waste time and to live life to the fullest. 

[Fran]

Thanks for posting your speech, Pete.  I bet it was very well received.