THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU-Family, Death, Love, Laughter, and a Whole Crapload of Baggage…..

“This is Where I Leave You” is another novel-turned-film that all of us readers held our breath hoping was as funny and touching as the book. I remember picking the book up and laughing out loud within the first 10 minutes. If I am not taken in the first time I pick up a book, it’s over for me. I’d rather play Words with Friends than waste my time on a story that doesn’t interest me. But I loved it from the beginning, and finished it just a few days later.

The plot: The death of Judd Foxman’s father marks the first time that his entire family has been together in years. There is, however, one absence: Judd’s wife Jen, whom he recently found in bed with his boss. (And the scene in the book is PRICELESS). While mourning the death of his father and his marriage, Judd joins his dysfunctional family as they reluctantly sit shiva and spend seven days and nights in their childhood home. The week quickly spins out of control as longstanding grudges resurface, secrets are revealed and much more.

And while I enjoyed both the book and the film thoroughly, the film, of course, had to leave out certain plot lines that they didn’t have the time to reveal. And of course, Jonathan Tropper’s ingenious wit is something one can only experience on the page. Nevertheless, they were both thoroughly enjoyable and left me thinking about family and relationships and my own life.

I look at my children, who, though they may fight over a toy or who gets to go to bed later, truly love each other more than anyone else in the world. They even miss each other when the other is still sleeping. They will defend each other to the end. They are just 3 and 5 years old, and I know through the years this relationship will change as they change, but I hope more than anything that they stay the best of friends. I look at people like Judd and his siblings in this story, and wonder, when did they become so bitter towards each other? When did they stop being sources of comfort for each other and instead become sources of pain?

So I started thinking about all of this in watching this film, watching these siblings push each other’s buttons and immediately force each other into the box that they remember they once used to fit in, “responsible and boring oldest brother”, “the baby, the screw-up,”, “the predictable middle child, the planner”, “BLACK SHEEP”…..I know you all shared your parents, and you lived together EONS ago, but do you really know each other now? Is it really fair to assume you know that this person still thinks the same way, values the same things and is still in the same place as when you really spent time together? If you truly love them(in the way you KNOW you do, as you are bonded for life), isn’t the most loving thing you could do for them to come to them each time with an open mind and an open heart? Excited to learn about how they are growing more into themselves with each year, how much they are learning on their journey, and what really makes them tick as adults?

I know this doesn’t just pertain to siblings, it often happens in marriages too; we know each other for so long, we just assume we know how each other will react to something. We many times find ourselves asking a question with so much negative subtext, as we expect the worst reaction from our partner. Why do we assume the worst based on something that happened in the past (sometimes WAYYYYY in the past)? I hope my husband is growing and changing just as I wish that for myself. If I don’t show him that I believe in him as an evolving human being, what kind of partner am I?

I think the sibling relationship is perhaps the most complicated in this regard, though. And although I do believe birth order does have much to do with how we deal with things, I think to label each other based on this, or on things we remember from our childhoods is unfair to each other. And we, in turn miss out on getting to know each other as adults with more life experience, self-awareness and often the humility we lacked as young people.

So if you are fortunate enough to have siblings, as I am, stop wishing they would initiate it; ask them out for a drink, call them up, Skype them once in a while. And ask them how they are, but more importantly who they are. And then listen. I’m certainly going to give it a shot, I’ll let you know how it goes…..