The Guardian

I am further convinced that I'm strangely abnormal. Most people cry during love stories or movies. I cried watching The Guardian.

It's a story of responsibility, guilt, love (you didn't think it'd be completely devoid of it, did you?), sacrifice, and more importantly, redemption.

Ashton Kutcher (Fisher)is a 24-year-old who joins the U.S. Coast Guard to save lives after losing his friends and swim team mates in a terrible care accident. He was the driver, and the only survivor.

Kevin Costner (Senior Officer Randall) is a reputable Coast Guard. With hundreds of lives in debt to him, he is still haunted by the past : by those he failed to rescue.

The scenes I will always remember :

Scene 1

Fischer : It's like he's pissed with me for breaking every one of his records...

Girlfriend : Maybe he just wants to you be better...

Aged bartender walks over, leans over the bar.

Bartender : I'll tell you one record you won't break.

Walks away, takes down a newspaper article on the wall.

Bartender : This ship was sinking. It carried 22 passengers. Randall managed to save all of them, cept 1. The nearest base was 20 minutes away. With a broken winch and a patient hanging on, he said, 'I'll never let go.'

He never did. Tore all his tendons and dislocated his shoulder, and he never did let go. Unfortunately, the guy died anyway.

Break that record, then come tell me.

Scene 2

Fisher : There's something I gotta know, though, before you leave... What's your real number? (Number of save people).

Randall : 22

Fisher : *Shocked* umm... thats, alright, I guess. Not 200/300 (as rumoured)... But you know, it's still good...

Randall : 22 is the number of people I lost. Its the only number I'll ever remember...

Scene 3

Fisher : Don't do what I think you're gonna do!

Randall : The cable won't hold both of us!

Fisher : Senior Officent... don't!

Randall falls, Fisher catches one arm.

Fisher : I'll never let go!

Randall : I know...

Randall unstraps his glove, and he slips, and falls - almost gracefully, into the churning waves.

The U.S. Coast Guard then launched the biggest search for a single man in history. His body was never found. Sometimes the men joke about him being washed ashore on an island, and that he's now sitting on a rock, fishing. Just like he'd planned after he left. But I really do wonder where he is now...

I got my answer soon after. I pulled a guy out from a mildly hypothermia area. I was the first rescuer on the scene. Disorientated as he was, he insisted that there was a rescuer with him the whole time, 'But he was there! He was there he whole time... Said he'd never leave me... Never did,' he said. And so I knew...

He's there, beyond the waves, doing what he's always done: looking out for others. He'll always be their hero. He is The Guardian.

'So Others May Live.'

* * *

The Guardian made me think of God, and the U.S. Coast Guard's slogan made me think of Jesus. Queer, but that's the way it is. =)

The Lord is my lifevest. He gives me hope when I have none, He is my lifevest when I am drowning, He is my saviour. My guardian, always and forever.

Who's your guardian?