I am a husband of one, father of four daughters, a dreamer, a builder, a believer, and most enjoyably a writer. In 2015, I became a reluctant Childhood Cancer Advocate as we lost our youngest daughter Kylie to the disease. Kylie taught me to steal joy from even the worst of circumstances and I will always be on the lookout for happiness among the thorns of life. Join me for a generous helping of laughter and tears.
I had someone tell me that the second year of loss is harder than the first. Naturally, I was dubious. After all, our first year without Kylie was devastating from every conceivable angle. What could possibly be more difficult than living in the recent aftermath of the loss of a child? Wouldn’t you assume that things would get a little better with the passage of time? I certainly did.
But there are stark differences between year one and year two.
In year one, you realize what a powerful thing delusion can be. The grieving mind plays tricks and dreams up scenarios where life is impossibly restored and you believe it simply because you want to – it is easier to believe than to live in reality. Memories pull you back to simpler times before the loss as a coping mechanism. Additionally, the tremendous shock of the loss serves as a numbing agent to the depth of pain and longing involved in the tragedy. I don’t know how long experts would say that shock lasts after such an event, but it slowly peters away.
There are so many worthy causes out there. Sometimes people gravitate towards them because of a heartfelt compassion and sometimes causes are forced upon us due to condition or incident. And some people are just morons. I’m sorry, I don’t use derogatory words like that to describe people very often and I’ve tried to use thesaurus.com to soften it. But when it applies, it just applies.
Of all the good causes that exist, a couple has decided that the flirtations of the song, Baby It’s Cold Outside infers sexual predation and must be stopped. So they’ve updated it with cheesy lyrics to emphasize the importance of consent.
As the father of daughters and just as a man, I am all for consent – no means no. But this is just stupid. Have they listened to the filth pounding through the airwaves these days? We have to use E ratings now because the language is dramatically worse than any lyrics from the 40’s and I doubt any young men are modifying their dating behavior because of a seventy year-old Christmas song that may or may not imply nefarious action.
This is tantamount to slapping grandmother for saying “Fiddlesticks!” Worry about your own generation and leave the Golden Girls alone – go rewrite Kanye!
I won’t post a link or mention their names because that would perpetuate stupidity and prolong their fifteen seconds of fame – which will go away unless they can write original material. But C’mon Man! Seriously?
If you are going to pick apart Christmas traditions, let’s start with the granddaddy of all social faux pas, The Twelve Days of Christmas. The PETA people should be furious when they consider the capture and gifting of twenty birds. What kind of living conditions would that make when your just throwing birds day after day at someone who is unprepared to accept them? Did his true love have abundant, free-range space for all of the calling birds and geese a-laying? A pond for the swans a-swimming? There isn’t even a mention of giving any feed! Did each one come with a lifetime supply? This, my dear morons, is fowl play.
Worse still, the song intimates the forced enslavement of fifty people when you consider the unfortunate gifting of maids a-milking, lords dancing, lords a-leaping, pipers piping, and drummers drumming. Holy cow – how can we live without knowing if they could break free from this tyrannical gift-giver? Did they stage a revolt on day thirteen?
This is something that plagues humanity!
But seriously – forget global poverty, the environment, animal extinction, the refugee crisis, and the AIDS epidemic. They will resolved themselves. Thank you for taking on this weighty cause. We’re all better with you spending your energy and efforts to rewrite lyrics to an old song because this is what will save mankind.
Go back to living off the grid and munching organic kale in your mini-house. We will keep the heat running out here in the real world because Baby, it’s Cold Outside.
A Generous Helping 