Why the film ‘Belfast’ Helped Me Heal from Childhood Pain and the Shame of Denial
Sometimes you need to go back to the past to make sense of the future
About twenty minutes into the film ‘Belfast’ I started crying and I didn’t stop till the end. My husband looked on concerned and bemused. He is used to me crying during movies, but this was strange even for me.
I couldn’t understand where the tears were coming from. But once they started to flow I was powerless to stop them.
I have now reflected on what it was that caused such emotion in me and I have come to several conclusions.
Firstly as a child, I had to endure far too many painful goodbyes. My father was a surgeon in Zambia and that was home. Both of my parents are from Belfast and to ensure I received a good education, I was sent to boarding school in Belfast at the age of 9.
I was extremely close to my dad. I absolutely adored him and saying goodbye whenever I had to return to boarding school broke my heart. Every Christmas, Easter, and Summer I had the joy of returning to Zambia for the school holidays. But the inevitable goodbye always came far too soon.
In ‘Belfast’ leaving is a pivotal theme throughout the film and I believe it was this that turned on the…
