Such a simple story, so moving. Senior citizens meet departing and arriving troops at the airport, giving them handshakes and hugs, passing out cell phones and cookies. As The Way We Get By, winner of the SXSW Special Jury Award, unfolds we see the painful challenges faced by three of the volunteers and the ways they get by, one of which is their volunteer work as troop greeters.

For six years these seniors have been showing up at the Bangor Maine International Airport–the last stop in the US before Iraq and Afghanistan–to dispense hugs, handshakes and best wishes to troops. And through their efforts to improve the live of others in just brief moments, their own lives have been enriched.

Bill is a veteran and widower, the first greeter the troops see, apparently a strong, sweet man, but as the film unfolds we see how his life has fallen apart: He is crippled with debt as he tries to live on his decaying farm, spending hundreds of dollars a month to feed his cats as he tries to cope with the loss of his wife and a diagnosis of prostate cancer. His depression is palpable away from the airport, and his situation seems untenable: His finances, his health and the utter squalor–a result of depression–in which he lives are all crushing him. However, the purpose he finds at the airport helps transform his life.

Joan, a great grandmother (and mother of the film’s director Aron Gaudet) is in constant pain and takes a variety of prescriptions to control her health problems. She wonders if throwing them all away would make her feel better. But at all hours of the day and night, she goes to the airport to greet the returning troops, surprising her family that she is out and about at all hours. And while she admits she can’t say goodbye to the troops, preferring only to greet the returning soldiers, when her granddaughter is deployed, she finally crosses that hurdle.

At one point Joan says about the war:

Would we want someone coming to here and telling us how to live? It makes you think.

Hale and hearty Jerry lives with his dog Flannigan. He jokes with them troops, buys cookies and candy for them, and beneath his bluff exterior he mourns the death of his ten year-old son. During the course of the film he must cope with additional loss and his own mortality. He too expresses doubts about the war and wonders if he’s being patriotic when he says about the troops

We don’t necessarily support the reasons they were sent there, but we support them.

As the troops return–over 750,000 so far have been met by Bill, Jerry, Joan and their fellow Maine Troop Greeters–they go to the memory wall and view their fallen fellows, and talk about their experiences. The troops’ pain and joy is every bit as heart wrenching as that of the Bill, Jerry and Joan as they embrace their families, call home and remember their lost battle-mates.

Last week’s film also profiled a group of senior citizens, and in both movies the message is that we need to be a part of something greater than ourselves in order to find purpose and a will to live (and given modern medical science, even if you loose the will to live, you’ll be kept alive).

The Way We Get By shows how one group finds meaning, purpose, and how they do get by, and more, by giving and caring. And I am not ashamed to say that I cried the whole way through.


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