He’s dying, is a line from the movie Kodachrome – film on Netflix. The line implies that even through he was a difficult person you should put that aside and spend time with him.
If family relationships weren’t so challenging, and if we didn’t have such a difficult time talking about and preparing for death, spending time with a dying family member might not be a big ask. Sadly, however, they are, and we do. In Kodachrome, Matt Ryder reluctantly drives his dying father, to whom Matt hasn’t spoken in ten years, across the country to the last photo shop in America that can still process the father’s decades-old rolls of undeveloped Kodachrome film.
“Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity” – Pema Chodron
Being stuck with the pain of not having the relationship you wanted may keep you from being in the relationship that’s available. We get to choose.
The set-up from Wikipedia – Matt Ryder is an A&R representative at a record label who is in danger of losing his job after his company’s biggest client signs with another label. His father’s assistant and nurse Zooey Kern arrives at his office and informs him that his father Ben, a famous photographer, is terminally ill. Though they have not spoken in over ten years, Ben has requested that Matt drive him to Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas, the last shop that still develops Kodachrome film. Ben has several undeveloped rolls he wants to have processed before he dies, and Dwayne’s will stop in the near future because Kodak no longer makes the required dyes.