Warning spoilers ahead, but they’re the good kind.
Arnold Schwarzenegger might play a badass robot on screen, but the man’s heart gives him away. We’ve seen the Terminator star open up on Reddit before, so it was no surprise when he took to the platform again to respond to a fan’s rousing story. In the post, the man spoke about his 72-year-old father who suffers from mental illnes. With the father’s health declining, the fan decided to take his dad to the movies to see the new Terminator movie — just like old times. We’ll let him tell the story:
First off, I should say I’m from Puerto Rico and English is not my first language, so I apologize in advance for any grammatical errors. Second, I am writing this not as a review or to give my opinions on the movie. I just wanted to share something very special that happened to me as I saw this movie with my father.
Today I turned 30 years old, I didn’t really didn’t know what I wanted to do but I knew I wanted to see the new terminator movie with my father. Terminator 2 was the first movie I saw with my dad in a movie theater, that experience really sparked a love for film, the kind of passion that my dad had for them. From then on we saw a bunch of movies together along the years, including all the terminator movies until now, it was our franchise. We both loved it and shared some great conversations with those movies. My dad loved Arnold’s catchphrase “I’ll be back” and he would just rewind it every time. I have only my dad to thank for my love for movies, it’s one of those things we always shared together.
Fast forward to January this year, I noticed my dad wasn’t acting like himself. He’s 72 and all his life always had mild mental problems (dementia and schizophrenia) that were always under control, but in January of this year, it went from bad to worse. He was hearing voices and acting very unusual, he wasn’t himself anymore. It really took us by surprise. Cursing and showing signs of aggression (he never hit us or anything but scared us a few times, so we took him to the hospital and he was placed in a psychological ward for two weeks, it was terrible for us seeing such a sweet man not being himself anymore. He was anxious, paranoid, hearing the “voice of God”. My whole family (we’re Puerto Rican, we have a huge family) were mourning this sudden unexpected situation, seeing my dad not being himself and not getting better has been the worse thing I ever experienced, my life long hero falling apart. It really was a painful two months. He eventually got released but heavily medicated, he was stable but he wasn’t the same anymore. He was super quiet and just there, existing. His memory was there but I’ve felt his spirit just wasn’t there anymore.
The last three weeks I decided to stay with him to keep him company. He didn’t want to watch movies anymore and it really broke my heart seeing him this way. He was there but it felt like he just doesn’t want to partake in anything anymore.
So today comes and it’s my birthday so I took the day off and decided that all I wanted was to see the new terminator movie with my dad, just use like old times. He agreed to go with me and I was really excited, not because of the movie but because I was finally get to enjoy movies with my dad again.
During the whole movie I was actually surprised to see my dad enjoying it, not because it was this amazing film we never seen before but because for MONTHS he hasn’t smile, he used to be a very happy man and always had a big smile on his face. I know it may sound dumb but it felt like a miracle!
So, if you’ve seen the movie, you know throughout the movie “Pops” tries to smile and just ends up looking funny, well during one of the last scenes, Pops smiles at Kyle and Sarah after they kiss, I looked at my dad and he has this huge smile on his face when he saw Arnold smiling…that’s when I lost it and began to cry (out of joy), I haven’t seen that genuine smile for so long. It was literally the best birthday present I could ever get.
Seeing my father smile after months of sadness made this experience worth it. To enjoy it with my father and seeing him smile will be a memory I will cherish forever.
TL;DR my father and me love movies for years but his mental health has declined over the last months and today was the first time in months I’ve seen him happy and smiling.
The story made Arnold smile too. The Terminator responded that same day with a quick message and this note on Imgur. Don’t worry, it’s OK if you get a little emotional.
