"Flow" - How the Cat-Whale dynamic resonated with me after my mom's suicide

I finally watched Flow yesterday at one of the last screenings here in France, and feel so spoken to. As someone who has lost a lot of people these past few years and felt responsible for the actions of others, the theme of people entering and leaving your life during their own journey gave me a lot of parallels.

But the Cat's relationship to the Whale really resonated with me, in my heart before I could explain it. I first saw this dynamic as a "help where you can and accept when you can't" moral:

The Whale saving the Cat, while literally lifesaving for the Cat was just a bit of effort on the Whale's part, maybe just an afterthought in its day. However, this situation could only be manufactured through the absurd scenario of the flood, where Whale just happened to have the skills needed to help. When the flood ends, the Cat is the only one with the skills/intelligence to get the rope out of the tree and help save the animals on the boat. When the Cat finds the Whale again -beached in a forest, another absurd scenario-, there is nothing he can do other than comfort the Whale while it dies. We aren't all built with the right tools for every scenario, and some problems are beyond our means, we are not able to save everyone, even if that person had previously saved us and we feel indebted to them. A very stoic moral that preaches forgiving yourself.

But I couldn't figure out why it was so powerful to me, so I went for a walk under the nighttime drizzle after the movie. I then realized that I saw the Cat & Whale's relationship as that of me and my mother, who lost her battle with bipolar disorder almost 2 years ago.

In addition to saving the Cat, the Whale was following the boat, serving as a source of comfort in a sea of danger. If something goes terribly wrong, the Whale would be there to save the Cat again. My mother, and most people's parents, was that source of comfort, and it's thanks to her that I am alive today, simply by virtue of being her child. She followed my boat as I sailed through the troubled waters of divorced parents, being moved as a child to a country whose language I did not speak, and through any other challenges in my life.

I have spent the past 2 years guilting myself since I found her dead. With a better son, she would still be alive -despite the fact that I had already stopped 2 of her attempts and was the only thing left giving her joy in life-. And while that may be partly true simply due to the butterfly effect, for the most part, I have to accept that the external circumstances (bipolar disorder & suicidal / a beached whale in the middle of the forest) were far too overwhelming.

If I watched "Flow" and could "forgive" the Cat for not being able to save the Whale, then I have to forgive myself for not being able to save my mom.