Wedding Doll

   I recently saw the Israeli film WEDDING DOLL by Nitzan Gilady . It is about a spirited mentally challenged 24 year old who lives with her mother and works in a toilet paper factory. The factory will be closing . The friendship she  has with the factory owner's son will be ending .
     This film is more about the journey than the plot. It is about the complexities of this mother-daughter relationship. The acting is superb. The  views of the Negev town that they live in is like another character. It is so breathtaking it should be on an aliyah advertisement.
     It must be so hard to be a  parent of a child who will never be able to fend for themselves. These children grow up and may know they are different but still want to be normal like everyone else . But they can't  be . This film presents this issue in a sensitive way. There are many dealing with these issues in real life. This film forces everyone to acknowledge all of this in a matter of fact way ,
     This is a very worthwhile film.  It won several awards in Israel. One never knows what challenges one will have to face. This film is about how some people chose to face their challenges.
   
      

dedicated to my bus boyfriend...

they say some people have work boyfriends .( or actually i think they call them work husbands) well i had a bus boyfriend. what is a bus boyfriend you ask? i will tell you....

i live close enough to the subway to walk, but there is a bus that i can take to the train if i so desire. sometimes i take the bus . sometimes i walk. there used to be a mentally retarded man who would ride the bus at that time of the day. he would always give me a big greeting when i would get on the bus and get the bus driver to wait for me if he would see me running to catch the bus. he was even jewish. of course it was hard to avoid the fact that he was mentally disabled. he used to try to wake anyone who was resting their eyes in the morning on the bus. why didn't they just go to sleep a little earlier so they would be more awake? he would say. or he would ask me if i would sit in the front row at his camp production . sometimes he would talk about his roommates at the group home and his counselors.

still in all, he was nice looking and about my age. i kept thinking how it was too bad that he was mentally retarded. at times he rated as the kindest guy in my life for those few years that he rode the bus with me. eventually he moved and stopped taking the bus. sometimes i see him walking to the train and he greets me like a long lost friend.

some people who find out they are going to have a mentally retarded child decide to abort them. and im embarrassed to admit that i would prefer not to have any kids than to have a mentally retarded child. however, after getting to know my bus boyfriend i have grown to appreciate the value of a mentally retarded individual. they may never be of normal intelligence, but they are capable of bringing joy to the world in their own special way.