Although this isn’t a new idea, I’ve decided to institute my own “love that scene” motif since there are so, so many that I adore — and today, it’s from The Sixth Sense. Just watched it again on cable (before Lost … to you know … get me in the mood) and the one scene that gets me EVERY TIME comes towards the end, in which little Cole Sear — played so completely hauntingly by Haley Joel Osment — decides to tell his compassionate, worried mother, Lynn — played convincingly by Toni Collette — his “secret.” You know, the one about seeing dead people and all.
They are in a traffic jam, due to an accident ahead in which someone has died. Cole knows this because the dead woman is standing by his side of car, bleeding from the head. He says to his mother he sees ghosts, and she looks at him full of even more concern and fear that her young son may actually be insane. He tells her he also has talked to “Grandma,” who, of course, has passed on. Cole says Grandma wants her to know that she DID watch her daughter in her dance recital, even though Lynn thought she hadn’t because they had gotten into a fight. Lynn starts crying.
Then comes the kicker. Cole says that Grandma also wanted to answer the question Lynn had asked at her grave site. “She said ‘Every day.’ What did you ask her, Mama?,” Cole implores. Through choked up tears, Lynn replies, “I asked her if she was proud of me.” They hug and dissolve into more tears.
Nope, can’t hold them back either.