“Getting” Gene

There is a fun motif in the film As Good As It Gets. The dysfunctional protagonist. Melvin Udall, a writer played by Jack Nicholson, is smitten by Carol Connelly, a waitress played by Helen Hunt. Each time they begin to draw closer to each other, Melvin accidentally offends Carol with an unwitting comment. In order to help re­pair the hurt, Carol insists that Melvin pay her a compliment “and really mean it.”

The best compliment comes in the movie’s final scene when Melvin tells Carol:

I might be the only person on the face of the earth that knows you’re the greatest woman on earth. I might be the only one who appre­ciates how amazing you are in everything that you do, and how … in every single thought that you have and how you say what you mean and how you al­most always mean something that’s all about being straight and good. I think most people miss that about you. And I watch them wondering how they can watch you bring them their food and clear their ta­bles and never get that they have just met the greatest woman alive. And the fact that I get it makes me feel good about me.

Among fellow Church members, some of us often feel like oddballs. We wonder why we are wired the way we are. We ask why we aren’t content to accept things solely on others’ authority or to follow only well-worn trails. In some ways, we’re Melvin Udalls.

But, like Melvin, we also have our mo­ments of clarity, when we see things others may miss. I believe this is the case with our feelings of deep appreciation for the life and example of Gene England. Many of his peers at BYU and elsewhere did not “get” Gene, but we understand that in him we had en­countered a great soul, one who was all about saying what he meant, and one who always meant something “all about being straight and good.” Thank you. Gene. To borrow from Melvin Udall, the fact we “get” your life and all that you were about makes us feel good about ourselves.

—Dan Wotherspoon
excerpted from Sunstone 121 (January 2002): 4–5