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Friday, March 18, 2005 at 2:36 am

inspirations

i'm reading three weeks with my brother now and i guess that's what inspired me to go to Nicholas Spark's website. so i clicked on each of his books and got some general information about them. now, i love his books. i mean they may be sappy and all but... oh wells. so i was really touched when i read some of these information about some of his books.
a walk to remember is by far my fav. i love it. i think its really sad. i always had this idea that Nicholas Sparks always made someone die in his books. but... i am so wrong. A Walk to Remember is about his sister.
in his own words:
"A Walk to Remember was inspired by my sister.
In many ways, Jamie Sullivan was my younger sister. Like Jamie, my sister was sweet. Like Jamie, my sister had tremendously strong faith. Like Jamie, my sister loved church. Like Jamie, my sister wasn't popular at school. Like Jamie, my sister was always cheerful. Like Jamie, all my sister wanted in life was to get married.
And like Jamie, my sister got cancer.
Like Jamie, my sister met someone. And like Landon, there was a long period of time when this fellow couldn't imagine himself marrying a girl like her. And yet, in the end, he couldn't help himself. Even when he knew she was sick, even when he knew that she might not make it, this man asked my sister to marry him.
It was just about the sweetest thing that's ever been done for anyone, and I suppose I wrote this novel not only so that you could get to know my sister, but so that you would know what a wonderful thing it was that her husband once did for her.
Sadly, my sister died in June (2000). She was thirty-three years old. . ."
i read that portion and i just had a sinking feeling.
Message In A Bottle was my first book i read by him. this is what it was inspired by.
in his own words:
"Message in a Bottle was inspired by my father after the death of my mother. In 1989, six weeks after I was married, my mother and father went horseback riding. They were avid riders and very comfortable on horses, and were simply walking the horses along a scenic trail. For a reason that no one can explain -- we assume it was the horse, a rather skittish Arabian -- my mom fell out of the saddle, off the horse, hit her head on a rock, had a cerebral hemorrhage and died.
My mother and father had married at the age of twenty-one and my father was absolutely crushed by her death. They'd been married twenty-seven years and my father didn't have the slightest idea of what it meant to be a grown-up without my mom. A lot of people wear black to a funeral. My father wore black every day for four years. He pretty much became a recluse. He pulled away from his family and friends, he stopped going out, he stopped doing pretty much everything. All he did was go to work and back home again. It was heart-breaking to watch.
After four long years of worrying about him, my father finally started taking baby steps out in the world again. He started reconnecting with family and friends, eventually he started to date again -- think more years passing -- eventually he met someone in particular, eventually he fell in love again. And then one day, about seven years after my mom had died, I got a call from my father. "I'm engaged," he said.
Now, I was happy about that, not because I didn't care about my mom -- I adored her -- but because I'd been so worried about my father. Kids worry about their parents the same way parents worry about their kids, and I was glad that he'd finally found someone.
Two days after that phone call, my father was driving home late one night, fell asleep at the wheel of his car, crashed, and died . . ."
it's amazing how real books can be. i always thought myself as stupid crying over a fictitious character but... its actually real. its just too real.
The Notebook. i'd always knew it was inspired from his wife's gradparents and i have always loved it. eventhough the movie wasn't really filmed really well, i still loved it just because i loved the book.
The Rescue. i never thought it was a fab story but i loved it all the same. read this. this is in his own words. i cried when i read this. its going to be long. but i promise you'll be touched at the end of it.
"". . . Despite the fact that all of my previous novels were originally inspired by members of my family, I'd have to say that The Rescue is my most personal novel to date. It was at times painful to write, even challenging, because of the memories it conjured up.
The Rescue, you see, was inspired by my son.
Let me tell you about that. Years ago, when he was five and a half, my older son Miles had to have his tonsils taken out, so we brought him to the doctor the day before surgery, so the doctor could tell him what was going to happen. He didn't want my son to be frightened by the doctor's mask or what was going to happen. Toward the end of the talk, the doctor bent over and said to my younger son, "Hey Ryan, how are you?"
Ryan didn't answer, but that didn't surprise my wife or me and we sort of laughed it off. "Oh, he won't answer you," my wife said, "he's our little mute child. He doesn't talk at all. This one over here (pointing to Miles) -- he never shuts up, and Ryan can't get a word in edgewise." The doctor nodded with a smile, and a few minutes later, we finished up with the consultation. The doctor then asked if he could see Ryan in the office for a few minutes.
"Sure," we said, figuring that the doctor was going to show him one of those models of a skeleton or something like that. A few minutes later, the doctor returned with Ryan, a serious expression on his face.
"I don't mean to alarm you," he said, "but I think your son is autistic."
Until that moment, neither my wife nor I had considered that something might be seriously wrong with Ryan. Because the words had come out of nowhere, we were staggered by what he'd said.
I don't know how many of you are parents, but those are just about the most frightening words a parent can possibly hear. Do you want to know what my first thought was as I stared first at the doctor, then my wife, and then at my son?
Rain Man.
The movie with Dustin Hoffman, where he plays an autistic character. The one where he lives in an institution.
Was that, I wondered, going to be the future for my son?
My wife and I left the office in a daze and spent the next few days trying to come to grips with what we'd been told. Before we'd left the office, the doctor told us to have our son evaluated and we made the appropriate calls.
It took six weeks for the evaluation to take place. Six weeks of worry, six weeks of stress, six weeks of absolute fear. Getting the results added another couple of weeks, and when they were done, we sat in the office with another doctor.
"Based on the evaluation, we're pretty sure he is autistic," he said.
"Is he going to be okay?" we asked.
"I don't know."
"What do we do?"
"I don't know, but you should know that a few things didn't check out, so we recommend getting another evaluation."
Six more weeks of worry. Two more weeks to get the results and the doctor sat us down again and essentially said, "Oops, sorry. We were wrong with our first evaluation. Your son isn't autistic. We think he has what's called Pervasive Development Disorder."
"Oh," I said, "Well. . . is he going to be okay?"
"I don't know."
"What do we do?"
"I don't know. But we do recommend getting another test, this time on his hearing, so we can be sure nothing is physically wrong with him."
We did. It took another six weeks and the doctor sat us down.
"Oops, sorry," he said, "your son doesn't have Pervasive Development Disorder. The problem with your son is that he's profoundly deaf."
We looked at him. "Then why," I asked, "does he turn his head when the air conditioner clicks on?"
"Oh, he does that? Well, let's get another test. . ."
We did. Two months later, we sat down again.
"Well, you're right," the doctor said, "your son can hear. But the problem with your son is that he's profoundly retarded with attention deficit disorder. . ."
That's how our year was spent. On an on, evaluation after evaluation without answers, without a plan of action, without knowing what was wrong with our son or whether it was going to be okay.
This was all happening in 1996, and 1996 was a pretty eventful year for me. 1996 was the year my father died. In 1996, I was still worried about my sister's health. 1996 was the year The Notebook was published. Lots of things going on that year.
When The Notebook was published, I went on a tour that lasted a little longer than three months and my wife was home alone with our two children, so for Christmas that year, I bought my wife a gift I thought she would love. I got her a trip to Hawaii -- without me.
'Without me,' you ask? You have to understand that she'd been home alone for three months, and we didn't have any family members nearby who could watch the kids. If she was to relax -- and she deserved it -- I'd have to watch the kids. It was the only way she wouldn't worry, so she went off to Hawaii with a friend.
Though it pains me to say this now, our marriage was a little rocky that year. Looking back, it's easy to see that we were under a great deal of stress, but at the time, it wasn't so clear. While she was in Hawaii, we had an argument about the state of our relationship and my wife called me to the carpet.
"Look," she said, her voice cracking, "let me tell you what I've been going through this year, okay? I wake up every morning and worry about Ryan. I wonder if Ryan will ever have a friend. Or go to school. Or drive a car, or have a girlfriend, or go to the prom. I wonder if Ryan will have to live with us forever. No one can tell us what's wrong with him or whether he'll ever be okay and all that's happened is that Ryan has fallen another year behind other kids his age. I think about these things all day long, they're the last things I think about before I go to sleep and I wake up in the middle of the night crying about it. That's what my life is like, now."
After she said that, I felt terrible. It wasn't like that for me. I'm not a mother and though I loved Ryan, I guess I'd just assumed he'd be okay. Needless to say, I apologized to my wife and then I said:
"As your husband, I'll make a vow to you. I promise to cure our son."
Big words, but I meant just that. Since all of this had started -- it had been a year since we'd been in the first doctor's office -- I'd read everything about child development that I could lay my hands on. During that time, I came up with a plan that I thought might just work.
The next day, I bought a small table and chair (this chair had a seat-belt) and I strapped my son into the chair. I opened a picture book, held out a small piece of candy, and pointed to the first word and image.
"Apple," I said. "Apple. Apple. Apple. Apple. Apple. . ."
After two minutes of that Ryan was bored.
After five minutes, he'd started to cry.
And I said, "Apple. Apple. Apple. . ."
After eight minutes, he was mad.
At ten minutes, he was screaming in fury, a temper tantrum times ten.
And I said, "Apple. Apple. . . "
He screamed and screamed and screamed.
After two hours of endless screams, for a little piece of candy, my son would say "aaaa."
After four hours of that, my son would say, "Ap."
After six hours, my son said, "Apo."
It was one of the greatest moments of my life. It was the first time in a year that I knew my son could learn. Such a small thing, something taken for granted by so many, but neither my wife nor I knew whether he'd was capable of that. But now, for the first time in what seemed like forever, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. A tiny light, but a light nonetheless.
The next day, I strapped him in and worked with him for another six hours. That night, I called my wife in Hawaii and apologized again. I put my older son on the phone and he talked to his mom, then I got on the phone again. "Oh, by the way," I said, "Ryan has something to say to you."
Remember, Ryan didn't talk.
I put the phone up to Ryan's ear, held out a tiny piece of candy, mouthed what I wanted him to say, and he said to his mom:
"I wuff you. . . " (I love you)"
sweet? yea. i told you.
A Bend in The Road was about his brother-in-law. [his sister's husband] i'm not going to copy and paste the thing cuz my entry would be way too long.
i love his books and if you know me. you'd know i have a small collection of his stuff. i don't have the movie 'message in a bottle' because i don't like the movie. i love the book though.
alrighties. i have to go because it's late. i'm done crying and i'm going to retire to dreamland. got a big day tomorrow. ECP with J-MeS_. hahas.