Carolyn Kasper has experienced tremendous loss throughout her life (more than we were able to share in this film). When she was 10 yrs old, she watched her father die. Many years later, she watched her husband Mike die of brain cancer. Though tempted to recluse from all possibility of being hurt again, she shares her journey in being open to love and life – again – at age 74.
I didn’t want to get hurt again - he didn’t want to get hurt again. I want to be happy, I don’t want to be scared again- But I’m willing to be. I’m willing to take that risk again.
But when you fall in love, it's a much more serious involvement. You just cannot forget this person. Falling in love is a thing that strikes like lightning and is therefore extremely analogous to the mystical vision. We don't know how, really, people attain the mystical vision. But as yet, we are not clear as to why it comes about; but you see, it is completely unpredictable. And so it is, in that way, like falling in love, capricious, and therefore, crazy. But if you should be so fortunate as to encounter either of these experiences, it seems to me to be a total denial of life to refuse it.
“To hope is to care enough to try - to risk striving without answers or certainty. It takes courage to hope because there is no guarantee that your efforts will pay off. Hope opens you up to possibility, but it also opens you to further loss. Hope is what staves off depression. It’s what makes you and others better. Hope is an act of profound love.”