A reclusive, God-fearing 91-year-old man and a young Cuban refugee home-aid worker struggle to come to terms with their regrets, the unbearable pain of unacceptable loss, love and the most difficult and beautiful of human truths: life ends and life goes on.
Long-retired city bus driver and World War II veteran, Walter Raymond Leland is 91 years old, in reasonably good health (for his age,) and lives alone in a tiny cluttered house in Los Angeles, California. When a dream of death and the great beyond visit him, he wakes with ambivalent certainty that God has called him home, that he will die this day.
Long-ago divorced and never remarried, Walter is estranged from his only surviving son and has lived a life of near isolation and solitude since his retirement 20 years ago. The radio broadcasts of the LA Dodgers' games, newspapers, certain books, memories and his daily home-aide worker have been his only companions. But he is not a pathetic character. He has accepted the circumstances of his life and in the sameness of his days has found some measure of comfort and regularity. Walter tracks his days in a calendar-planner book, jotting down the score of the Dodgers' games, weather conditions, marking the birthdays of his parents... his son... and other miscellanea.
Walter's regular home-aide worker is unexpectedly unavailable to care for him this day and a substitute home-aide worker, Marisol Angelica Castillo, arrives instead.
Marisol fled to the United States from Cuba 10 years ago. Her three year old son, Mateo, her only child, drowned during the desperate boat crossing from Cuba to Florida. They boy's body was never recovered. This day marks what would have been Mateo's thirteenth birthday. Marisol has never accepted her son's death. For 10 years she has lived with the unbearable pain of unacceptable loss, caring for others, all the while nursing a smoldering estrangement from God. All her nightmares are about that terrible night in the ocean when she lost her son.
Walter tells Marisol that he is going to die today and begins to convey the details and regrets of his life as he tries to make peace with what his life has and has not been, insisting that this day will be his last. Marisol does not want to hear what the old man is saying -- she doesn't want his premonition of death to be true -- but as she tries to humor him (preparing his "last" meals, drawing his "last" bath, etc.) she unwittingly performs a last-rights ritual. While choosing not to accept what is right in front of her, Marisol begins to open up about her loss, about her life diminished by sorrow and anger and guilt. Through a quiet and stunning duet of revelation, Walter and Marisol forge an unlikely and necessary connection. Together these two strangers wage a tender, tough and moving battle over life, death, acceptance and forgiveness as they come to terms with the most difficult and beautiful of human truths: life ends and life goes on.
