A Ball for Monsters

I watched Monster’s Ball years ago, and back then I didn’t really get the depth of the movie because I hadn’t lived long enough to know that sometimes, you gotta just let yourself be loved.

Last night, it was on—so I watched it—and it clicked. It’s kinda beautiful when you think about it. Two people going through a horrible chapter in their lives—probably the worst—yet they meet unexpectedly and fall in love. This was not the time for love… but love knows the right time, and nothing can stop it when it is the right time.

The two main characters had both just tragically lost their sons. That thin thread of grief is what tethered them. They didn’t even realize that something so awful could be used to soften a heart and draw them together. As time went on, they built on that foundation and eventually laid bare before each other. They each had to allow a perfect stranger to see them at their worst and offer a form of safety and comfort.

They both had to drop things—people and limiting beliefs—to really lean into their destiny. Because they did this, their entire trajectory changed.

Hank had never had real love. His toxic father passed on the lie that women were only good for one thing, and Hank passed that on to his son. He lived his father’s life. He worked the job his daddy worked and held the bitterness and beliefs his father held. He had no life of his own… he was an extension of his angry, bitter father—until he allowed himself to step out of that mold to help Leticia that one fateful night.

Leticia was obviously angry and bitter. I’m sure she didn’t see her life turning out the way it did. She had just watched her husband get electrocuted. Then, on top of that, her only son was hit by a car and killed. After her son’s death, she lost her waitress job, couldn’t pay the rent, and was evicted.

At the time of the eviction, she and Hank were new. She met his dad and decided to have nothing to do with him, so she wasn’t speaking to Hank—but he still showed up with a U-Haul and moved her to his house. She needed him. He was a good man for her. They were good for each other.

With the right man, you can’t say anything wrong. He will see you through the eyes of love and grace every time.

Before Hank, she was poor—living in abject poverty, hand to mouth—and just couldn’t catch a break. Then, as providence would have it, she meets Hank. Not anyone she would’ve dated, and she was probably not anyone he would’ve dated. But they needed each other. And at the set time, they met.

She wanted to have a reason to retreat back into herself—to wallow, to hate him—after meeting his racist father and finding that drawing later. But she decided to do things a little differently this time. She dropped all the trauma she was holding to pick up love.

I understand this now. If we want something different, we have to do something different. We have to let things go.

We can’t hold love and hate at the same time.