In honor of the third anniversary of the passing of Paul Walker, I'm reposting this!! I woke up this morning to the news that Furious 7, the latest in the Fast and Furious movie franchise, had topped 1.15 billion in ticket sales. It has had the #1 spot at the box office for three weeks running and it is now the seventh biggest earning movie of all time. An amazing feat that some are calling the legacy of Paul Walker.
My first for today is that I am going to find my voice [something that has taken me a long time to do] and go up against some folks who are stating that Paul Walker's legacy is that he left this world by having a billion dollar movie. I know it definitely is part of his legacy, but as I have stated in a previous blog post, the legacy goes beyond so much more than that.
Over the weekend I had an awesome girl's day with a soul sister of mine. She excitedly asked me how my trip to LA went for the Furious 7 premier (reference Blog Post from 4/9). Can I tell you how nice that was? Someone made a point to ask me about one of the highlights of my year. Heidi, a hug to you for putting that out there. Again, I cannot tell you how much that meant to me.
I was asked to describe the feeling of being at the movie premier. This lead me to writing this blog post. The question brought me back to what I was feeling on that exact night. While I was standing amongst so many people from so many walks of life, I realized that what Paul Walker's legacy exemplified was sitting right there in that theater on this warm April night.
On April 1st hundreds of people gathered to celebrate not only the release of his last film, but also to celebrate the person that Paul was. I won't pretend to know him because I had never met him before his untimely death. To be honest, before his passing, I had never seen any of his films or been familiar with him as an actor. I am now getting a really good picture of what he truly must have been like upon meeting some folks who were in his "circle".
For that one night, I felt like all was right with the world. All was right with the world because I felt such true and utter love. I felt and saw what his family meant to him and what he meant to his family. His family was not just biological but situational. His friends and his fans all gathered together in one spot. All the love poured out and for one night everyone focused their love on one thing - Paul. How cool that so much energy was so big in one place. I saw the effects of what everyone focusing love, instead of say hate or anger, had on a crowd and had on the world.
Getting back to that amazing billion dollar mark, here are my thoughts. I think that for this small moment in time, people around the world are clamoring to get that same great feeling that I did that night in Hollywood. I see folks leave the movie theater (having seen it again just this past weekend) with a look on their faces of pure and utter love. Everyone is leaving the theater in a peaceful, yet emotional state. Perhaps it is giving them all the impetus to reach out and share their love with someone else. We never know when our time, or that of a loved one, will come to an end.
So, in closing, Paul, I think that your legacy reaches more than just the box office numbers. I truly believe that your legacy is one of joining the world together no matter what their race, ethnic, financial, gender or any other group may be. No matter where someone comes from, you have proven that we can all get along together as long as you throw in that component of love.
Until my next adventure,
P.A. Walker
P.S. Not to diminish other parts of Paul's legacy, please check out his great work with his charity Reach Out Worldwide (www.roww.org).
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxU4kDmRzIw[/embed]
