How can I NOT talk about it? Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Locke, Sayid, Hurley, Desmond, Jin and Sun, hell, even Ben – they’ve been like family for the last six years. I’ll say it now: spoilers abound, so if you haven’t seen the finale yet, stop reading now. You’ve had your warning.
Why on earth would I talk about LOST here though, besides being a totally obsessed fan? Well, the commentary on fertility, life, death, and rebirth has always been a recurring element in the show. Ss someone who is now infertile and learning of this after half the show had aired – well, it’s added an interesting element to my viewing. LOST definitely has had some Mommy issues. Women who conceive on the island die. Claire’s baby Aaron has to be raised by Kate when Claire cannot escape the island. Jacob, the Man in Black, and Allison Janney as the most terrifying OB/GYN ever as we learn their backstory: birth and fertility have always been woven throughout the show.
EDIT:
…So I cheated and wrote those first three paragraphs a week ago in preparation for ICLW. I have now finished watching the finale, and since this is first I’ve been able to stop crying hysterically since the credits rolled, I’ll try and write something cohesive. All infertility connections aside, this was a beautiful, moving, well-crafted ending to a moving, beautiful, well-crafted story. I’m still sitting here, stunned and a bit haunted by the final scenes.
When Juliet appeared (which I knew was coming when Elizabeth Mitchell’s credit popped up in the opening and I may have squee-ed a bit) and performed Sun’s ultrasound, I think that was the first time I started crying in the episode. Jin and Sun suddenly remember their island past, and it was just so powerful. Of course, as someone who may never even get to experience this kind of ultrasound, well, it hit home. Same thing for Claire’s birth scene in Sideways world, as Kate remembers her island past as she helps to deliver Aaron (again).
In the last half hour of the finale, Kate convinces Claire to leave the island with them. Claire refuses to leave, saying, “This island’s made me crazy, I can’t be a mother to Aaron like this. I don’t even know how to be a mother!”
Kate responds: “No one does, Claire- at least not at first. You’re not alone.”
Larry chuckled at my abundance of tears, thinking this was all just my reaction to the show, but again, like so many other scenes related to birth and fertility in this show, these words rang deeply within me. Through tears, I explained this to Larry, whose face softened and said, “That’s sweet, then honey. It’s good to know you’re not alone.”
Cue: more tears.
While I’m still trying to process the relative ambiguity of the final scene in the church, I’m still left with some of the greater concepts that the show left us with: family (however we define that), faith, love. The underlying message is of course is that what matters most is our experiences, our connections with one another, and the lives we build and craft for us. Like my existential musings last week, it felt like LOST was really speaking directly to my philosophical ponderings.
It’s rare that I connect with a show like I have with LOST. Battlestar Galactica was a close second, but I never watched it while it aired. I ended up watching the whole show over 2 months on DVD (and I’m sorry, their finale BOMBED in terms of writing and closure compared to LOST). I think part of it was because that yes, the fertility elements of did resonate so strongly for me that it made the character experience that more human, that more real for me.
This post is a bit rambly since I’m still processing the last two and a half hours I just watched, but I wonder: are their shows or movies that have resonated strongly or differently for you given your journeys in infertility? What are they? How have they impacted you?
@ Uinipooh-
In the vein of redefining family, it is not just a child who can say kaddish for a parent. Your group of friends and extended family could take on the task if they so chose. In my family's tradition, only men say kaddish, and though my father had children, he had no sons. His brother and nephews said kaddish for him.
I am a new blogger, and just found your blog through ICLW (my first month). I felt exactly the same way. The whole emphasis on relationships, family, life, children, death…. I reacted the same way you did. One thing that really gets me, and what hit me in the gut during the LOST finale, is that there will be no one to say Kaddish for me.
By the way, I also have POF, and look forward to following you! Please follow me.
Wendy/Uini #79 ICLW
Have you seen the Israeli movie Ushpizin? That one deals with an ultra-orthodox couple's infertility in such a real way, set against the backdrop of Succot. And has many a hilarious moment.
I wonder when I'll be able to think of Lost without crying. When I'm not crying about it, I'm cataloging the questions that still plague me!
Oh my gosh! I was crying like a freaking baby last night! If it turns out that my husband and I cant have children together, I want a pack of great friends just like them!
It is like you are in my head!!! Like all things in my life, Lost made me think of my infertility, but in some weird kind of happy way. I think it is a beautiful story of how people are "meant" to be in each others lives, kind of adopted! They made a "family" out of what they had. It is refreshing to know that I can "make a family" even if my body is not able to. All you need is to love others to have a family.