Miss (Almost) Brave

Tonight was Seward family Movie Night, and the feature film was Brave. Only Ava had seen any of it, and she had only seen the first half or so. From the first scene, Ben and I were laughing at how much the main character Merida reminds us of Jocelyn. From the running and jumping all around to the crazy curls cascading all around, it seemed Jocie may have found an animated kindred spirit.

That is, until the final scenes unfolded. So as not so potentially spoil anything for those who may still want to see the movie for themselves, I'll just say there are some pretty intense scenes involving bears and the potential for these animals and some of the humans meeting very violent ends. It was long before these scenes that Jocelyn had crawled into Ben's lap, and by the end she didn't care who she was sitting with, she was just sobbing. "I don't like this movie! This is too scary!!" is what I believe I deciphered through the hysterical tears. And yet, when she moved from Ben to me and I told her to just look away and I'd tell her when the scary part was all done, she couldn't help but watch. Jocelyn has always been my emotional child, which is something I find endearing but cannot relate to in the least. I could count on one hand the number of movies that made me sad enough to actually cry at in my entire life - Jocie probably already has me beat in that department. She lives her life with her heart on her sleeve, and loves, laughs, hates, and cries without restraint. She may not be brave enough to watch this movie again for a while, but I love my crazy red-haired child and will be there to snuggle and soothe her when she does.