TV, FAMILY, DRAMA

What Are Our Stories If Not The Mirrors We Hold Up to Our Fears?

Memories of my family tragedies evoked by HBO’s drama, ‘I Know This Much is True’

November 1st is the Day of the Dead in Hungary. We don’t have such an uplifting and positive tradition as the Mexicans do (Día de Muertos), but one that is deeply grim and depressing. We visit our relatives and friends who are no longer with us and light a candle for them. 18 years ago, on that day, my father took me to the cemetery and told me a story that I’ll never forget.

Once we had lit the candles for my great-grandparents, we walked a few steps over to another grave. A grave of a young boy. The photo of him was black and white, a little faded and worn, but I could figure that he was about the same age as me when he passed away. Perhaps that’s why my Dad chose this moment to tell me about his childhood friend, and how he died.

He said that they lived in the same area of my hometown. His friend’s name was Sándor, but he called him Sanyika. The day Sanyika turned fourteen, he got a racing bike from his grandmother as a gift. My father said he was excited about it, although he didn’t know how to ride it properly.

At that point, my dad stopped for a second to take a deep breath before he continued. My father is not a sentimental man. I had seen him cry only three times in my life. Then he went on telling me about that summer and how Sanyika tried out his bike, but it was too big for him. He wasn’t confident riding it, although that didn’t hold him back to take it out on the road. Looking at the grave, my dad shook his head and whispered, “That goddamn bike.” He told me that Sanyika got hit by a truck that summer and died instantly.

I never knew how to react to that story, even though I heard it several times ever since. It always baffled me how my dad dealt with it and carried on with his life. He’s not a nostalgic person and is always looking toward the future because he can’t be stuck in the past. There is nothing there — he used to say.

But every year on the 1st of November, he stood in front of that grave for several minutes to remember his friend. I saw a kind of pain in his eyes that never disappeared. I’ve not assumed to comprehend the notion of that grief or how he felt about it. You can attempt to understand one’s emotions and be empathetic, but you can never fully apprehend that until you lived through something similar yourself.

After watching three episodes of the new HBO miniseries, I Know This Much is True, this memory of standing by Sanyika’s grave, watching my father wrestle with a pain he barely spoke of, haunted me for days. The series was adapted from Wally Lamb’s novel that reached bestseller status at the end of the 90s; right after Oprah selected it for her famous book club. Lamb is the king of literature in Connecticut with numerous prestigious awards.

The story takes place in the ’90s in Connecticut and begins with a violent and shocking act. Mark Ruffalo plays twin brothers, Dominick and Thomas Birdsey. Thomas suffers from schizophrenia, and Dominick (who has been his caregiver since he was a little boy) fights for his brother’s right to have a “normal” life as much as possible, given the circumstances.

When we witness their lives, we learn that Thomas had been sent to a mental institution and Dominick is doing his best to get him released. Meanwhile, we get a glimpse of their difficult and violent childhood accompanied by a loving mother and a deadbeat alcoholic stepfather.

I was about the same age as Dominick and Thomas in the flashbacks when I spent a lot of time at my grandma’s place. My grandparents had a huge two-story house with spacious rooms. I remember one of them particularly well because it scared me to death. It was my great uncle’s room, and I was terrified of him. His movement was fragmented and unnatural to my eyes, and the tone of his cacophonic voice was frightening. In hindsight, it’s clear that he was mentally ill, unable to care for himself. A decade passed before my father mentioned his uncle, using the word “retarded.” This was something we never spoke of — a “family secret.” I don’t know why it had to be kept a secret.

It was never easy for me to fully understand it, considering my nightmarish memories, but it finally made sense. Since his death, my grandmother never said a word about my great uncle, which I find strange to this day. Was she ashamed of him? Or the memory is still too haunting, even after decades, to remember her own brother? I’m not sure what the answer is, but, at this point, I should ask before it’s too late.

In Dominick’s life, Thomas has been a liability, a burden, and a destroyer of everything normal. He never found peace and sense of the world around him. They were bound together, not just by their identical DNA but by blood and family. One was incapable of living a normal life, and the other couldn’t because of him.

That is more than enough sorrow to bear, but I Know This Much is True extends its somber suffering by adding domestic violence, cancer, grief, and a director called Derek Cianfrance to the whole. Cianfrance is not famous for his uplifting feature films, but for ones that cut deep and scar you for life (Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines).

Film critic, Ed Cumming, described the series as “a gloomy show, brilliantly acted but impossible to recommend.” It is an emotionally burdensome drama that dissects uncomfortable topics glued together by a heavily depressive tone, but I do recommend it, nonetheless. The topic of mental illness and how it affects whole families, for generations, is powerfully told in this gripping story, perfectly acted by Mark Ruffalo as the lead, bleeding his soul into these complex and tragic roles.

I Know This Much is True is an unhappy, mournful, and grim portrayal of two brothers, but that’s the reason why it has a compelling effect on the audience that you’ll find yourself haunted by just like I did. We all have blurry memories from our past that we don’t want to revisit because they are too dark and dreadful. However, if we do, we might find some answers leading to undiscovered secrets that help us to a better understanding of ourselves. As Lamb wrote:

“What are our stories if not the mirrors we hold up to our fears?” — Wally Lamb in “I Know This Much is True”

I Know This Much is True is streaming on Amazon Prime and Sky.

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