“What’s My Destiny Momma?”

Do you believe in destiny? In 1994, Forrest Gump asked his dying mother a powerful question: ”What’s my destiny Momma?” Did she have the answer? Do you? Is her response any good? If you believe the movie, perhaps not.

It’s been 15 years since that film came out (and in the process made nearly $700 million). Paramount’s been kicking around the idea of a sequel for years. Producers would now like to get the movie out sometime in the next couple of years, but it takes an awful lot to get such projects going and completed even though a script’s been in place for years. Some complications have held the thing up. Most of all, will Tom Hanks reclaim the role he mastered? If he doesn’t, would you be interested? Me neither probably.

You may not recognize the name of the movie’s screenwriter Eric Roth, but you’ve probably heard of a couple of his films like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Good Shepherd, Munich, Ali, and more. Yeah, he’s pretty good and has probably made more money than Gump & Co., the title of the planned sequel to his 1994 masterpiece.

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It’s almost as if Winston Groom, author of the original 1986 novel, listened to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Simple Man and then created Forrest. So much of the simpleton’s story can be summed up in the first verse of that song.

 “Take your time… dont live too fast,
Troubles will come and they will pass.
Go find a woman and you’ll find love,
And dont forget son,
There is someone up above.”

Someone said Forrest believes in God, Momma, and Jenny, and “everything else has to be filtered through those three things.”

He encounters one character after another with bigtime dreams. Jenny seeks fame; Bubba wants to run a shrimpin’ business; Lt. Dan longs to fulfill his military destiny.  None of them achieve the success they long for, yet Forrest attains all those things and more without ever realizing what he has. He just want to make his mama proud and be loved by Jenny.

People think he’s a genius, a brave hero, an inspiration, and more. Forrest accomplished all this stuff without trying, but as far as he was concerned, he didn’t achieve much. Those things didn’t matter to him, and after Jenny left he felt so alone and empty that he literally ran for years. He thought a lot about the people who’d impacted his life, but mostly he thought about Jenny. Like many of us, he was obsessed with that one thing he couldn’t have, life’s biggest regret.

He just knew that “Momma always said you gotta put the past behind you before you can move on.” That’s what his run was all about. Everyone wants to know the reason he runs or does anything. The answer is often the simplest possible explanation.

We want to believe that we too can maintain our innocence despite all the terrible realities around us. We’re drawn to themes of heartfelt innocence and simplicity because the more we understand, the harder life is to digest.

Forrest is unaffected by the cold reality of bigotry and hate but also humble, even unaware, in the role he plays as healer.  The legends around him are just as interested in the simple truths he reveals as he is in the bizarre twists of reality. He’s aware of his limitations but also understands when he’s figured something out.  “I’m not a very smart man,” he says, ”but I know what love is.”  Like so many of us he may not grasp the meaning of the hate and conflict around him, but unlike so many of us, he knows about love, how to give and receive it.

There’s much to be learned from each of the characters around him. Jenny felt so much regret before she died.  She had made so many bad decisions. Bubba died and still had no clue. “Why’d this happen Forrest?”  Lt. Dan grappled with powerlessness. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not to me. I had a destiny. We all have a destiny. Nothing just happens. It’s all part of a plan.”

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So whatever happened to the big deathbed inquiry, one man’s grasp to find his destiny?

Forrest’s momma tells her son, “You’re gonna have to figure that out for yourself.” Well thanks a lot. She does add the iconic advice that ”Life’s a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” Her answer reveals more about how much she understands her son than about our purpose in life.

Life can’t be like a box of chocolates. Even the bad ones are good to someone, and we don’t always get to choose which one we pick. The only way life is like that candy box is if some of the chocolates are filled with poison. As James Hetfield said, you know it’s sad but true.

All Momma can offer in the end is that, “You have to do the best with what God gave you.” Forrest had never really questioned anything. He was just drawn to people who accepted him without questions.

Then Jenny died. At her grave, he is in so much pain, still searching for answers.

“I don’t know if Momma was right or if it’s Lt. Dan. I don’t know if we each have a destiny or if we’re all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze. But I think maybe it’s both. Maybe both are happening at the same time.”

We may have more smarts than the guy, but we’re often just as lost.

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Not hitting the destiny you planned can be confusing (Bubba), exhausting (Jenny), but also enlightening (Lt. Dan). In the end, we’re not in total control. Our destiny is at least altered by the decisions of others.

The famous saying goes that if you want to make God laugh, show him your plans. If you don’t believe in God, life is even easier to laugh at. My existentialist friends would echo Jean-Paul Sartre’s belief that life is absurd.

Whether you believe in destiny or not, your life will continue to unfold, even unravel at times. You can’t control your circumstances, but you must control your response.