The Thorn Birds in Ten Minutes

Made for my Mom for Mother’s Day, her favorite book and miniseries. RIP Mary Lynn Morris [née Gindhart] (1963-2014) My mom could be kind of a pain in the ass. She could also suffer from a near constant momentary lapse of reason. That’s okay because she managed to pass both traits on to her oldest child. Like any proud Irish woman, she was not blessed with an easy life. And yet despite all this, she managed to worm her way into my top three favorite people of all time. My mom wasn’t perfect and she never claimed to be. She didn’t believe in gender equality on the grounds that men would always be the inferior sex. In her chest beat the heart of a true artist, endlessly seeking the beauty and enlightenment in the darkest of corners. Courtesy of Grandmom Gindhart, she inherited an abundance of gallow’s humor and taught me never to take anything (most of all myself) seriously. She taught me that there is no statute of limitations on the words, “I’m sorry.“ She always fought for the underdog and believed that empathy for all people was the path to true happiness. She believed in rock ’n roll and that music would save your mortal soul. She taught me not to fear the reaper and that I could and would achieve anything I sought out to do. She believed that art could and should be both dangerous and beautiful. She taught me to never to believe in the twin lies of consumerism and cynicism. She taught me to love people for who they were rather than who I wanted them to be. I am not educated enough to possess the words to accurately describe what my mom meant to me; as such I will cease wasting your time trying to do so. The last time that I spoke to my best friend was a few months ago. I had called to wish her a happy 51st birthday (as usual a day after the fact). Due to her illnesses, she had been in a lot of chronic pain for nearly a decade. However, on this call she was excited for the future in a way that I hadn’t heard for some time. She was excited for her upcoming trip to NYC. She was excited to see her granddaughters. She was excited to meet the woman I love, the woman she had come to refer to as her second daughter. She sounded ready to embark on the third act of her life. The penultimate conversation I had with her consisted of me telling her that I just wanted to make her and Dad proud because of how how hard they had worked when we were growing up. She only responded, “Honey, we felt that way about each of you since the three of you learned how to breath on your own.“ When she went to sleep the next evening, I’d like to believe it was happy and hopeful. I wish I could say that she woke up the next morning, but she didn’t. For a woman who liked her power ballads writ Jim Steinman large, she went out on her own relatively quiet terms; quietly, happily, and with a minimum of fuss. I wish that I had a better reason for why she’s gone than, “She just didn’t wake up.“ Alas. So it goes. This was my first Mother’s Day without her. There were days where I wanted to punch someone, anyone, just to feel that this was real. There were days where I wished I were more religious just so I would have some deity to hate. However, she wouldn’t want me or anyone to be sad or angry on her account. If she were here, she would immediately say, “Get on with it.“ But then she would impart each one of us to heed the immortal words of Eden Ahbez, “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return.“ The entire 1983 8 hour Thorn Birds miniseries in ten minutes. I own nothing. All rights belong to David Wolper-Stan Margulies Productions, Edward Lewis Productions, and Warner Bros. Television.