The Five Wishes of Mr. Murray McBride

Content Warning: This section contains discussion of suicide and child death. 

“How can a man as old and washed-up as me possibly find a reason to live?”

After his wife’s death, Murray has little interest in living. His doctor urges him to find a reason to keep on living, but Murray resists. He will have to embark on a journey to understand The Importance of Human Connection to understand the value of his own life.

“Can’t help but wonder now if maybe I should have spent more time telling them how much I loved them. If I had, maybe they wouldn’t have been distant parents with their own kids.”

Murray struggled to have a close relationship with his sons because he worked a lot when they were little, and his distance from them affected his grandchildren. Part of Murray’s character journey is about healing those poor parenting patterns.

“Boy his age shouldn’t have heart problems either. Why would God let me live a hundred healthy years and give that boy a bad ticker?”

Murray struggles with the injustice of Jason’s heart condition. Although he questions why God would allow a child to suffer and die, he never explicitly finds answers. The audience is left to decide what the answer is.