Through a Glass, Dimly
My dad never was the kind of man that 'loved' movies. He liked Westerns, John Wayne, and Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. His favorite movie was the 1959 version of Ben-Hur - quite possibly the only movie that he could be said to have truly loved. But all in all, my dad was not a 'movie guy'.
Thus, when he dragged a little 11-year-old me to the cinemas in 2009 to watch some movie called Avatar, I knew it must be special - and it was. James Cameron’s sci-fi epic broke nearly every record that there was to be broken, and on top of that it grossed nearly 3 billion dollars at the worldwide box office to become the highest grossing film of all time (a title previously held by Titanic, Cameron’s previous cinematic achievement).
I was enamored instantly with the world of Avatar. The creatures and ecology of Avatar’s fictional planet Pandora were from another world - quite literally. And the story, while simple, made a fantastic showcase for the groundbreaking CGI technology that Cameron and his cohorts developed for the film. All that to say, Avatar was a big deal, and for me, it was made all the bigger of deals because my dad absolutely loved it. Is it the best film ever made? No. Is it basically Dances With Wolves but in space? Yes. However, it was dear to my father and I, and that was enough.
—
When my father was first diagnosed with cancer all those years ago in the dying light of a cool November afternoon, no one thought the worst. No one ever does. The usual tears, prayers, and silent gazes circulated around the room, but I suspect that most of my family, like me, had the hope that my dad would make it. He just had to. He was, after all, the sturdiest man I knew; a firm man with a firm faith, a faith seemingly cut from granite. Cancer was a far-off creature that lingered in the frames of movies and under the microscopes of university labs, not something that my family had to deal with. Or so we thought, just as everyone thinks when that razor-sharp word is uttered for the first time, drawing like a blade across the mind.
My dad was constantly in and out of the hospital in the days and weeks that followed. By Christmas he grew steadily weaker and worse, but it still seemed manageable. However, by the end of January, the doctors sat us all down and told us that he had only six months left to live. He died the following week.
—
So, one can only imagine my delight when Avatar 2 was finally announced in 2015 or so. I say “or so” because it seems as though the Avatar sequels have been in development for years at this point. Firstly, not one, but four sequels were announced to follow up the events of the original film. Shortly thereafter, it was announced that the first sequel, now officially titled Avatar: The Way of Water, was to be released in theaters Christmas of 2017, with subsequent films to be released at two-year intervals from that point. This was great news! Cameron, the director, said that though the first Avatar took over a decade to make, there was no need for fans to fret going forward given the sequels could now be produced much faster. This was largely due to the vast technological advancements of the CGI that was needed to bring Pandora to life. However, Avatar: The Way of Water got delayed until 2018, and then 2019, and then… Well, then Covid happened. It seemed as though the sequel - the first of four sequels, mind you - was to be suspended in developmental purgatory for an eternity.
But, after years of silence, Cameron finally spoke. At long last, in the early months of 2022 a teaser trailer was released that showcased only a slim 30 seconds of Avatar: The Way of Water, and perhaps more importantly, a release date of December 16th, 2022 was now set in stone. Finally.
—
I’ve often told myself, and others, that I never truly got to say goodbye to my father. However, upon reflecting on those final days with him, I can quite honestly now say that this was not the case. He lost the ability to speak the last week of January, and he remained hardly conscious from this point up until the moment of his passing. However, only a few days before he stopped talking, he and I shared our last true moments together as father and son.
Much of my family had dispersed, leaving my father and I alone for about an hour or so. I knew that this was precious time; it was hard to get him alone these days and I knew that there wasn’t very much time left. Rather than stay folded up in his small hospital room, I took him for a stroll around the hospital in his wheelchair. We engaged in idle chit chat as we made the rounds around the cafeteria and nurses’ station, steadily growing more and more accustomed to the unfortunate state of our surroundings - but, a walk was better than no walk. However, as was my father’s custom, he soon turned the conversation away from the material and onto the eternal. My father, like me, must have realized that our time left together was short, and he had no intention of having these precious moments wasted.
“It’s funny,” he said as we rounded a corner, “I’ve been thinking about that Avatar movie a lot these days.”
This took me off guard to say the least, but within a few moments I replied, “Oh yeah? How so?”
“It might sound a little silly, but for some reason that movie reminds me of Heaven. Not as though Heaven will look anything like that movie, but just the pure wonder and mystery of it. If that Cameron guy could come up with a world that is so beautiful and so different from our own using only his imagination and a few computers, then I can’t even fathom what our God has prepared for us when we meet Him face to face in Heaven.”
He paused for a few moments as we walked on, as though formulating his thoughts, and then continued. “Jesus said that He went to prepare a place for us, and that this place was going to be so much better than anything we could have imagined or thought up. We see through a glass dimly here below, Josh, but when we get there, we’ll see things for what they really are.”
—
Going to see the original Avatar with my father back in 2009 has solidified itself as my all-time favorite movie-going experience. We arrived for an earlier showing, sometime around 6 or 7 p.m., only to be told that the film had been selling out everyday for the last three months. The man behind the counter issued this news as though my dad and I should have already suspected this to be the case - what were we, rubes or something? To bide our time before the later 10 p.m. showing that had a few seats left, my dad and I went across the street to East Side Mario's for dinner and then caught the movie.
The film was fantastic, and the time spent with my dad was a dear memory. This memory was only made all the more memorable when we realized at the end of the film that he locked his keys in the car, resulting in the couple beside us in the theater offering to drive us home on that late winter night. However, we could hardly care less - we had a great time together, and we simply chatted about the film with the young couple as they drove us home in the wee hours of the night. My dad joked along the way that he would deal with the wrath of my mother come morning. We watched the movie on a Saturday night, so my dad had about six hours to figure out a way to get our only vehicle home in time for church the next morning - somehow he managed, as all the best dads do.
Watching the next installment in the series, Avatar: The Way of Water, was never going to be an easy task for me. First of all, I was no longer that 11-year-old boy from 2009 - this was 13 years later. I was 24, recently married to the love of my life, finishing up my university degree, and in an entirely different season of life. However, what was perhaps the most notable change of all on the night I watched Avatar: The Way of Water was the hard reality that my father was not in the seat next to me. I was nervous to watch the movie. What if it wasn’t good? What if it tarnished my love for the original? Worst of all - what if my dad wouldn’t have liked it? These may seem like silly concerns, but they didn't feel silly at the time. There was a sense in which part of my father and my memory of him, the part that loved Avatar and my memory of seeing it with him, was at risk of being tarnished if the second film failed in some way. It was as though I needed this new movie to be good in order to validate the aura around that earlier memory - as if both past and present would suffer loss if the future did not live up to my expectations.
After having seen the movie twice now, I can rest assured that it was every ounce as good as the original, perhaps even cutting an edge above it. Every story beat and technological advancement that made the original Avatar such a lasting hit was not only present in the sequel but elevated far beyond its predecessor. The action was rich and complex; it felt as though there was real weight behind the actor’s movements and actions, a true feat considering most of the film was purely CGI. The world of Pandora was given new depths and enhanced beauty that made one feel as though they never truly left the theater in 2009. Characters were now given more emotion and nuance, addressing a major concern that many critics had of the original film. Indeed, in the 13 years spent waiting for Avatar’s sequel, we all grew up; and, oddly enough, it was as though the film’s characters grew up with us when the time came for another big screen appearance. We had to wait 13 years, you see; we all had to grow up a smidge more before we could properly embark on the next leg of the adventure together. All in all, watching Avatar: The Way of Water felt like seeing an old friend again for the first time in a very, very long time. My dad would have loved it.
—
Grief is a funny thing. It stings, it bites, it numbs, and sometimes it itches. It itches a part of you that no longer exists. After the passing of his wife, the great British author C.S. Lewis reflected on grief as though he had undergone an amputation. The amputation is a sharp pain, unlike anything you have experienced before, and then the healing begins - this is what we call grieving. Only, amputation doesn’t solely mean the loss of a limb, as though that were all, for you must now go on living without that limb. You must learn to walk, work, eat, and sleep without that part of you, because it isn’t coming back. And yet, sometimes in the dark of the night the missing limb will begin to ache and itch and as you stir from your sleep to attend to the itch you soon realize that there is nothing to scratch at all - it isn’t a part of you anymore. So it is with grief.
Sitting in the theater watching Avatar: The Way of Water without my dad was one such itch. I have had many itches; some are just momentary feelings and others are aches that seem to last for weeks, but they always get better in the end. The parts of you that are dearest, once they are gone, always seem to itch the most. However, there is a certain, quiet beauty in that. As the weeks and months have ebbed and flowed since my dad’s passing, years taking their place, I have had to remind myself that, while he is not here, my Tata is by no means gone - he is simply elsewhere.
Life is woven together with seasons, and with each season there comes a new seasoning, as it were. Some years are seasoned with joy, others with sorrow, but most are a blend of both. Even though my dad never got to enjoy watching the next Avatar with me, he got to experience something far better - he got to see beyond this dark glass we call life into the clear, open air. Indeed - there are far, far better things ahead than any we may leave behind, for though now we see through a glass dimly, soon we shall see things for how they truly are.
Author’s Note: In an effort to write with integrity and as unto the Lord, it is important to stress that, though these events are in fact true, I do not always recall the exact words used in specific conversations. As much as I’m able, I strive to remain faithful to the event in question, capturing the ‘intent’ of the conversation when my memory fails with respect to exact words.
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