Published:
A Lasting Impression: Heath Ledger's Last Film and The Appeal of Finality
The Oscar buzz surrounding Heath Ledger's role as the Joker in "The Dark Knight," the new Batman saga opening next Friday, is not just a marketing ploy, says Professor of Psychology Amy Hollingsworth. Nor is it simply the yearnings of a celebrity-obsessed culture, as critics have suggested, driving the interest in seeing Heath Ledger's last completed film role before he tragically died of an accidental prescription drug overdose in January.
Instead Hollingsworth sees the anticipation of Ledger's final performance as evidence of something more: a growing interest in "last things," a way to make sense of loss by looking to the final things said or done by a person who has passed away.
"How ironically fitting," a film professor told ABC News, "that Heath Ledger's given a great performance and he died. Nobody is going to think twice about seeing it."
The reason people won't "think twice," says Hollingsworth, is because there is comfort to be found in last things. A college professor with a master's degree in psychology, Hollingsworth spent more than a year listening to the stories of those who had lost loved ones and found that healing gifts are often hidden behind the last things a person says or does.
She chronicles her findings in Gifts of Passage: What the Dying Tell Us with the Gifts They Leave Behind, a book filled with moving stories from the lives of both celebrities and ordinary people that illustrate the uncommon comfort reserved for us in last things.
About Your Speaker...
Amy Hollingsworth is the author of The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor, based on her nine-year friendship with television's Fred Rogers. She has a master's degree in counseling psychology and a bachelor's degree in English and is an adjunct professor at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where she lives with her husband Jeff and their children, Jonathan and Emily. She has written for various magazines, including ParentLife, and was a writer for eight years for The 700 Club television program. Here is a link to a recent television interview with Amy on Harvest TV (occurs about 15 minutes in)
http://www.harvest-tv.com/video/dsp_playshow.cfm?showid=170
Finding the Gifts of Passage
A New Message from the Best Selling Author of The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers
After suffering the loss of her father while writing her bestselling debut book, Amy Hollingsworth began to search for the meaning behind his dying moments. What she found was a simple truth at the heart of overcoming the deepest grief: the dying leave gifts.
Weaving together the warm intimacy of Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie and the straightforward honesty of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, Amy Hollingsworth adds her hopeful voice to the literature of life and the life beyond. Gifts of Passage (Thomas Nelson, Inc., ISBN# 978-0-8499-1920-6, April 2008) will be an intriguing journey for any and all readers fascinated by this brief overlap of heaven and earth. With deeply moving stories of how others discovered the gifts their loved ones left behind, this book will gently encourage readers to anticipate and uncover their own.
"The Chinese believe that an invisible red thread binds those who are destined to be together," writes Hollingsworth. "Parents who adopt children - especially from foreign countries - often use the imagery to illustrate the providence of unexpected kinship. I didn't realize it at the time but when I began my search to find the meaning of my dad's dying gift, I was taking hold of a red thread. Over the next months my red thread would wend its way - crossing time and culture, spanning age and death - connecting me to those whose stories would matter to me, would teach me. Each gift unraveled like a mystery, so that I was learning not only about the gift but about the process I had to go through to discern my own. With each story the red thread tightened, pulling me closer to the meaning of Dad's final gift."
www.GiftsofPassage.com
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judythpiazza@newsblaze.com
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