"So Dear to My Heart"

This is a much less-known Disney movie and often overlooked in terms of importance. I understand that a lot of the older Disney movies, especially the ones that were not cartoons like "the Swiss Family Robinson" have been forgotten. Yet, this movie really speaks to me personally.

Those of you that have read my blog post on "Pets" know how very special my dog, Charm was to me. He was my absolute, best friend in high school, which may have been one of the most difficult times in my life. Charm however, was not a favorite of everyone he met. While he loved me, he was not always great with strangers and he definitely didn't play well with other dogs. I can't tell you how many times people told me to get rid of him. Years after my dog had gotten into a small scrap with another friend of the family's dog, the lady said casually to me, "So you did finally get rid of the dog, right?" When I replied, no- that we had found other ways of taking care of the problem, she said, "Well you should have, that dog was a nuisance!" There are few times I have been angrier and had to be quiet at the same time, in my entire life. I loved that dog, maybe more than any person in the world at that point. Taking that dog away would have been terrible for me, but some people only care about their stupid, quiet, clean, boring lives to deal with anything that's different or requires an open mind.

"So Dear to My Heart" is about a boy named Jeremiah Kincaid who dreams of owning a champion race horse until one day when the lambs are born in his grandmother's barn. He meets Danny, a small and unfortunately, black lamb. Danny's mother rejects him because of his color and Jeremiah's heart swells with pity and compassion for the little sheep. Although his grandmother immediately tells him that black sheep are a nuisance and useless because black wool is undesirable, Jeremiah takes the lamb in as a pet. Trading in his dream to own a championship horse, Jeremiah decides to prove to everyone who laughed at Danny that his lamb is worth something by planning to take the lamb to the county fair. If the lamb can win a blue ribbon and cash prize, he'll be the talk of the town! But Danny proves to be a difficult pet to have. He is strong and bull-headed, constantly causes damage to everything he comes across and is an escape artist to boot. Jeremiah never gives up on the lamb. He fixes everything the lamb breaks, searches through the dangerous swamps for wild honey to fund his county fair trip, and stays out in the woods for hours after the lamb runs away one night while its pouring rain. His grandmother tries time and time again to get rid of the lamb but she just can't do it. Jeremiah loves the lamb so much, that one night after a particularly bad incident, she finds him asleep in the barn with his arm around the lamb. 

The lamb means everything to the boy. In the end, Jeremiah takes the lamb to the fair and although the lamb does not win the blue ribbon, he wins a special award for merit and as the judge calls it, "real spirit." Jeremiah believes this event changed him for the rest of his life and I believe Charm changed mine too. 

This movie is one of the first I've seen that shows that animals, as well as people can have a good deal of unfair prejudice against them, but it does NOT mean that they do not have worth. Charm would never hurt an innocent person. He was great with babies and incredibly patient, yet people avoided him on the sidewalk because he was a pitbull. People told Jeremiah over and over that his lamb was an ugly, obnoxious, nuisance, and a waste of time, but Jeremiah saw the beauty in the small, unfortunate little sheep and loved him for who he was. In return, I imagine that this experience with Danny helped Jeremiah to grow up to become a very kind and determined young man. This story teaches us to never give up on the ones we love and to follow our dreams no matter how bad things seem. "True love is good for the soul" Granny tells Jeremiah and it doesn't matter that the thing he loved was a sheep. This movie makes me believe in a higher power because it touches my soul and reminds me that I am not alone in my belief that simply because a creature is less intelligent then a person, does not mean that it does not have worth. And this makes me feel stronger.

The movie may not be popular, but just as Danny was unpopular and loved never the less by Jeremiah, this movie will always be special to me. It will always be, "So Dear to My Heart."