In Chris Easterly’s short film The Best She Could, those in the care profession inevitably face this difficult question: What do you say when you don’t know what to say?
Father Charles (Russell Teagle) is a young, newly minted priest, standing at the bedside of Carolyn (Candy Dennis), a woman with little time left. He does what priests are supposed to do: offer her spiritual comfort, pray, and promise to guide her to her new home in the Kingdom of God. But Carolyn doesn’t want a priest. She wants a mother, one who knows. Father Charles texts Lydia (Carol Easterly) and asks her to come sit with Carolyn, but Lydia isn’t so sure she’ll be of any use. With time running out, Father Charles hits the streets, knocking on the doors of his congregants, looking for anyone willing to grant a dying woman her last wish.
A woman sits at the bedside of the dying Carolyn in The Best She Could.
“…hits the streets, knocking on the doors of his congregants, looking for anyone willing to grant a dying woman her last wish.”
With a brisk 3:20 runtime, writer-director Chris Easterly taps into our fear of saying the wrong thing to a dying person. In The Best She Could, he gets straight to the point: no one wants to confront the dying when they feel ill-equipped and ill-prepared. But someone needs to step up and risk making a mistake. His message is simple: yes, it’s hard, but not as hard as you think.
"…What do you say when you don’t know what to say?"
