I saw this movie when I was about 20 years old and at that stage in one's life where you're really trying to come to grips with some of the questions of existence -- like, what does it mean to die? Is there such a thing as a "good death"? I'd been reading Sartre and Camus all summer, and I thought this film was a refreshing and touching addition to their sometimes bleak, sometimes inspiring thoughts on life and death. When Linday Wagner's character says to Kate, in a jealous fit, "I'm gonna be dust (while you're raising my daughter)," that was chilling. The film really gives you (no matter how old or young) a sense of your own mortality, and that no matter how hard you try, the world will gradually forget you once you're gone (ironically, the same thing Camus' narrator dwells on in his jail cell in The Stranger). What a legacy Kate now has to fulfill -- she must be true to the dying wishes of her friend, as though she is still a living, breathing presence, even as her memory of who she actually was slowly fades. And what a despairing realization for the dying mom -- to know that your child will only have these slowly disappearing memories of you, no matter how hard she might try to hold on to what she remembers. Lindsay Wagner tries her best to arrange a dignified, "authentic" death -- not spending it in a hospital ward and watching her daughter be turned over to the organs of the state/family. Her effort is very commendable and inspiring.