Phoebe, two years old, was sitting perched on the sofa watching it, too -- but mostly she was captivated by Willoree, because Willoree gets so completely engrossed by movies and by life in general that her emotional response cannot be ignored.
Willoree is six. Willoree is probably the most precious and deeply sensitive person I know, and she cried her eyes out at least five times during this movie. She cried when the cat fell into the river. She cried when the mountain lion was on the prowl. She cried a couple other times. She cried when the animals made their great escape from the pound (which, by the way, was totally pushing it emotionally in my opinion, Walt & Co. -- after all these animals had gone through and you're going to serve up that crazy mishap?) Anyway. At the end of the movie, Willoree cried tears of pure joy and relief when the old dog who we all thought died in the mud emerged out of the magical wood and greeted his BBF, the older boy who was seemed to be getting too old for miracles. She may have screamed, actually.
So maybe you can imagine this. Willoree with these three poor animals. Phoebe, bored by the animals but mesmerized and affected by her sister, who was mysteriously freaking out every 15 minutes.
So here's what made mama cry...and just explode with that feeling that all mothers feel on these wondrous and occasional intersections of simplicity, love and awareness. At about three cries in, Phoebe comes into the kitchen and tells me, in her broken choppy almost indecipherable language: "Mama. I'm going down the hall and will get a washcloth. I'm going to get a warm washcloth and take it over and wipe Willoree's tears from her face. I will help Willoree be happy."
I am remembering now that when I was a kid, seeing animals -- or bad things happening to animals -- impressed me more than bad things happening to people.
And we all went to bed in a pouring down rain, and the souls' of our plants grew 19' that night.
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