“It starts May fifth.”

I have been hearing this from my boys for months now.  May 5th.  The opening of GOTG 2.  It was big news in our house.

The movie is rated PG-13, and my kids are both seven.  I realize it is a grown-up movie and my kids are kids.  I therefore refused to bring them opening weekend.  My kids and I are a hurricane blasting through wherever we go.  I try to be respectful where I can, however, and one thing I can do is keep the littles out of the theater when it is filled with fans who went out of their way to see it opening weekend.

The movie has been open for a week now, today is Friday, and the kids have the day off school.

So we went.

And I wept.

If you have not seen this movie, I will not spoil anything but will say that some of the themes in the movie are a bit on-the-nose.  (You will remember from the first movie that he grew up without a dad and that his mom died when he was young.)  This, however, isn’t why the movie wrecked me.  I have found that spouses/dads dying in movies does not evoke a huge emotional response from me.  You would think that watching someone lose her husband or father would bring back my own memories and situation.  It doesn’t.  The truth is that losing him is so big — so fucking huge — it just has absolutely nothing to do with whatever is happening to a character in a movie.  I could watch movies depicting parents and spouses dying all day long and it would not affect me.

THIS movie, though.  This one.  Guardians of the Galaxy vol.2.  This movie wrecked me.

This movie — the one we had been planning to see as a family.

The one that is rated PG-13 but I can’t say no to the kids because Trey would have brought them.

The one for which Trey taught my kids to remember the opening date.

The one that has Kurt Russel.  Kurt fucking Russell why did Kurt Motherfucking Russel make it into this movie?  Trey had an unhealthy obsession with Mr. Russel.  Do you have any idea how many times I’ve seen Overboard?  We’re not talking about Escape from New York or Big Trouble in Little China.  Every time Overboard comes on, we’re watching it.  This is true of the other movies as well, but they don’t come on as much.  Trey loved Kurt Russel.  On his birthday this year I requested that friends and family post pictures of Kurt on Trey’s Facebook wall.  Two months before he died.

Our family of four is now a family of three.  Plans we made will never be fulfilled.  We will not attend graduation together, or give girlfriends a hard time.  We will never make the holiday Leavenworth trip a family tradition.

We will not see Guardians of the Galaxy 3.

My weeping began during the previews.  Today previews were featured for the new Star Wars movie, Wonder Woman and Thor.  All movies we knew were coming and we were planning to see.

Together.

The four of us.

Then the movie starts, and it is so amazing and he would have loved it.  The kids are loving it and would have loved sharing it with him.  And then Kurt Fucking Russel appears onscreen.

It was all over for me.

I laughed at the movie, and cheered and loved it.  Through it all, though, I wept for all the dumb little plans we made that we will never fulfill.