1st grade...1966
Bambi was playing at the movies in my town and I wanted to go see it. My mom refused. I never got an answer why my brother and I could not go but we just could not. I remember begging and begging to go see Bambi but all my pleading fell on frozen, deaf ears. I was heartbroken and I never let my mother live that down. For many years when I was still in elementary school. ...no let me rephrase that....every year when I was in elementary school I would always bring up the fact that I was Bambi deprived. Bambi challenged even! Bambi deficient and Bambi lacking.
I was positively Bambi defiant and determined to let my mother know I was Bambi scarred. In middle school I may have brought it up 2 of the 3 middle school years. In high school I brought it up yearly as in do you remember when.......you would not let us see Bambi. My mother was haunted by Bambi. I haunted her with Bambi. Whenever she thought of me she thought of me missing Bambi. Even she began to bring it up. I think I brought it up once in college and that was my senior year. I was off to the real world and had never seen Bambi.
After college I left home and was gone for about 10 years. I haunted my mom with Bambi from afar via phone and letters. YES>>>yes yes..she remembered that we did not go to see Bambi. After 10 years of being away I moved back home for a short while, about 3 years I think, and in that three years Bambi was never forgotten.
I was Bambi defiant in that I could have rented the video and watched it but I just could not get over the fact that my mother would not let me see it back in 1966 and for no good reason. Just because! What the hell was "just because" when it came to a Disney movie? That was insane. Finally Disney released Bambi from the Disney vault around 1999 I think. I was at my mothers' house visiting and my daughter who was 6 at the time asked if we would be getting that movie. I told her I was not sure. We were watching a commercial about Bambi being out of the vault for a limited time--me, mom and my daughter.
It was July and my birthday was at the end of the month. I told my daughter we would have to see about the movie and of course it was the perfect moment to bring up the fact that when I was a little girl, nana would not let me go to see Bambi. My mother let out a big sigh. She had been hearing me talking about not seeing Bambi for 38 years. 38 years. 38 years of no Bambi and being haunted by me being scarred for not seeing it. Bambi! Bambi! BAMBI!!! 38 years of Bambi.
About a week before my birthday I was leaving town. We had the standard family birthday dinner. I got one of the best gifts I ever got that year. My mothers' gift was in an envelope. I figured a gift certificate or money...you know the usual. I opened the envelope and it was money. A check for $21.26. I looked at her. She looked at me. She said it was for me to buy my personal copy of Bambi before it went back into the Disney vault. I started to tear up and so did she. I gave her a hug and when I did she apologized into my ear for not taking me. She had no idea it would affect me in such a way. I was 38 and Bambi scarred--Bambi starved!
I went out to the Disney store that very evening and bought my copy of Bambi and watched it all alone with a big bucket of popcorn and kleenex. After seeing it one time I watched it again. I have never brought Bambi up to my mother again. I was going to be okay. I was going to heal. My mother had found a way for me to see Bambi!
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