Goodbye, Dear Friend

How often in our lives do we enter a conversation with someone knowing it will be our last?  How do you prepare yourself to say goodbye, knowing it's your one and only chance to do so?  Nothing you can possibly say will ever be enough, and yet saying nothing would leave you with only the regret of missed opportunity.

I just got off the phone from speaking with Patricia Cronin, aka "Patty", a woman who was like a second mother to me throughout my teenage years.  She in hospital in Ottawa.  She's dying.  It is only a matter of a few days and she will grace our world with her presence no more.  Well, that's not true.  Her physical presence will have passed, but her wisdom, her guidance, her wit and charm will live on, through those around her, those fortunate enough to have called her friend.

I've not sat with her in person for close on two decades, though I have certainly still felt her influence.  Her wisdom and guidance were of great comfort to me in my youth.  And while time and distance have seen us far apart for this past half of my lifetime, a lump in my throat still rises at the thought of never seeing her again.  I cannot help but sit, wiping the tears from my eyes, overcome with a deep sadness at her departure, and yet a smile on my face, impressed at how, even now at the end of her life, she can sit and talk on the phone with such calm, steadfast grace.

She is, and always was, an incredibly impressive person.  She is a good person, an incredible person.

She has accepted her fate.  In time, after a good cry, I will accept her fate too, and in doing so, honor her advice to me:  "Keep your sense of humor, and this too shall pass."  I will remember her example.  I will speak of her fondly.  I will smile, and tell people some of my favorite stories about her.  And when I do, I will miss her, but I will feel blessed at having known her.

She had a quote of which she asked me to take note.  She shared it with me.  I share it now with you:

"We are not humans beings on a spiritual journey; 

we are spiritual beings on a human journey." 

(Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

Goodbye, Patty.  I love you.

Year Six

I awoke this morning to find Liza-Ann was missing, but had been replaced by a small fairy, her tiny feet pressed against the side of my leg as she lays on an odd diagonal across the bed.  Olivia often sleeps in strange positions.  Usually, waking to find her in bed with me raises annoyance as a first response (she often tosses and turns, and I swear she has about eight knees and fourteen elbows) but this morning her presence brought a smile to my face.  It was a welcome life reminder that "things are just fine" after a small scare last night with a twenty-minute nosebleed while Liza-Ann was out.

The more time I spend as a parent, the more respect I have for my own, and for all.  As I sat on the edge of the tub last night, one arm around her and the other holding a tissue to her pinched nose, I closed my eyes and wished that the sheer force of my will could make the bleeding stop.  That's as close as I come to prayer.  I was perhaps a little more panicked than one reasonably should be over something so simple as a nosebleed, and I could not help but think of my own parents, and of my siblings as parents, and wonder how often they've experienced such acute pangs of "Oh fuck.  No.  No.  NO NO NO."  My parents raised four.  Sometimes I feel like it's a struggle for us to handle one, despite the fact that she's a pretty well-behaved and altogether adorable child.

And I remembered an unfinished thought, and an unusual feeling, from a conversation I had back in December at the company Christmas party.  I've been meaning to write about it ever since but just never seemed to get around to it.  Today, reflecting on my mother, planning a visit to my father, and writing as I often do each March 2nd, parenting seems an appropriate topic.



The Christmas Party


When it comes to me and memory space, my brain works in a weird way.  Facts, numbers, trivia, formulas and such stick with me; events slip away.  What I do remember of events is often not so much what occurred as much as how I felt about it.  Last December, at the company's annual Christmas party, I met a co-worker's new girlfriend.  And while the two of us sat chatting at one point (my coworker had gone to fetch us drinks, and Liza-Ann had gone home early), the conversation went in a direction that a decade earlier I'd never have foreseen.  We had been talking about the things that make or break relationships.  Jess's relationship with my coworker, Justin, was relatively new.  She has no children of her own, but Justin has a young son, Nathaniel,  just a little younger than Olivia.  And so she found herself in much the same situation as I was some six years ago when I first started seeing Liza-Ann.  I asked her if she liked and/or wanted children, and her honest-but-awkward response - "I don't know" - made me laugh.  It had been my own response years early, the very first time I met Liza-Ann's mother, Winnie, only a few weeks into our relationship.  ("Pat, Winnie.  Winnie, Pat." "Do you like children, Pat?"  Wow.)  I found myself then assuring her that she was certainly not alone, and describing to her some of the personal journey into parenting (and self-discovery) that the past six years have brought me.  We were cut short by Justin's return before I had my chance to finish expressing a new-found insight I'd had fairly recently about priorities:  the number one thing you should strive to provide for a child.  And in those moments just before he arrived with the drinks, I had a feeling that I think now I'd been waiting years to have.  It was warm and wonderful.  It comes and goes regularly now.  I look forward to the day it's a more permanent fixture in my heart.

Unlicensed Technician

On Valentine's day this year I received some very nice gifts and cards from Liza-Ann and Olivia, but I don't think anything could have topped the simple fact that the card Olivia left on my nightstand was addressed to "Dad", complete with letters of mismatched sizes.  I always used to think that the stereotypical way in which they always depict a child's writing in movies and on television - the backward 'R's and such - was hyperbolic, but no, at a certain age children really do print that way.  She'd asked Liza-Ann cautiously the night before if it would be "ok" to address it as such.  It was certainly very welcome.

Over the past few years, Olivia has cautiously substituted the word "Dad" here and there, as if trying it on for size.  I, too, have been acutely aware of the fact that for a long time, I always felt this need to clarify the point, or to correct people if they referred to Olivia as my daughter.  "STEP-daughter."  It was never an attempt to disown her, but rather a certain uneasiness about the notion of myself as a parent: I'm not her father, just her step-father, as though that somehow abdicated me of the responsibility of her well-being.  I would on the one hand speak of how she spends considerably more time with me than with John, and then on the other feel this need to insist she's his, and not 'technically' mine.  Like Olivia using words like 'dad', whenever I referred to myself as a 'parent', I felt like I was trying the word on for size, and most of the time, I was left feeling somehow like an impostor.  I felt like I'd chosen a role for which I was not qualified, and that I was required to warn everyone I came into contact with, the way someone will say something like "yes, I can fix your computer, but I'm not a licensed technician."


As I sat there, speaking with Jess, reliving what six years with Olivia has taught me and joyfully sharing with Jess the various epiphanies I'd had (and leading up to my most recent one), perhaps for the first time, or if not, most certainly for the strongest time, I no longer felt like 'the great pretender'.  I was am no longer an impostor.

I'm a parent.

Sure, my relationship with Olivia will continue to have its moments of awkward trepidation, but the fact that we've established a parent-child relationship, that we love each other immensely, and that we're an important part of one another's worlds and always will be - that's irreversible, and probably was long ago, before either or both of us were willing to admit it.


Approval, If You're Wondering

The point that got cut short that night as I spoke to Justin's new belle was "approval".  The pragmatists will talk about keeping their bellies full and giving them a bed to sleep in and a roof over their head.  The romantics will talk about "love" as the cure-all, and how crucial it is to shower your child with it and provide them with a nurturing environment, but to me, whether it is parenting or partnership, love is not enough.  Love never is.  It is entirely possible to love someone and not express it.  It is entirely possible to hurt the ones we love, to neglect them, to be critical of them, or to be downright cruel to them.  Love is never enough.

I've come to believe the most important think you can give a child is neither the bed to sleep in (though that's important), the help with the homework (though that's important), the assurances that they are loved (though that's important), but simply:  approval.  Instill in them, in no uncertain terms, the knowledge that you approve of them as a person, and thereby empower them to develop not simply a sense of self, but a sense of self-worth.

My brother shared with myself and my siblings a piece of slam-poetry a while back:  "Pretty" by Katie Makkai.  It struck a chord with me, one that resonates strongly enough that it sometimes brings a tear to my eye when I re-watch it.  I'd already become aware of the way in which most adults, in interacting with Olivia, gravitate so quickly to such notions.  "What a pretty little girl."  Everyone wants her in clever little dresses and to be "a little princess".  I'd already made a promise to myself that I would never suggest to Olivia that my loving her was in any way contingent on her being "pretty", and that whenever I told her reasons why I loved her that physical beauty would only ever be mentioned if it found itself listed as one amongst many reasons.  She will, in time, as we all do, develop for herself an image of how the world sees her, and based on that, build a self-image, an invariably slightly-distorted copy of that image inferred by the comments of those around her.


When I tell her I love her and why, I tell her the things I want her to value, in the world and in herself.  "Pretty" can be amongst them, but it cannot and will not be the first and foremost.  She is an incredibly intelligent, imaginative, polite, kind, clever, witty, funny, compassionate, and charming little girl, who happens to also be very pretty.

I Think This is Where We Came In

My mother saved all my report cards.  We had a place near the mantle where we kept all the trophies I got through school and through Air Cadets.  They insisted on having my Commission scroll framed even though I recall not caring that much about it at the time.

I'm heading to lunch with my sister, and then we're going to visit my father.  Dad has always been very proud of me, and I've always known it, even if it wasn't always expressed in so many words.  He thinks I'm a very smart young man.

He's right.  I am.  Well, maybe I'm not that "young" any more, but he's still right about the "smart" part.

The Shoebox and the Watershed

I love music.  I digest music in a way that I know most people don't, have the Lyrics Plug-In installed with every copy of Windows Media Player I own or use, and have literally sat through repeated passes of songs while tweaking the graphic equalizer to figure out precisely what that one word was.  Most of the music in my collection is there as much for what the author is saying as the way in which they're saying it, I keep Red Hot Chili Peppers reluctantly because I love their groove but they make no sense whatsoever, and I was a long time reconciling The Tragically Hip's mixture of poetry and narrative before they passed my scrupulous screening process.  "Revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night" is what was really said, the chorus of Blow Up the Outside World by Soundgarden is "...I've given... I'd give... I'd give... I've given..." though I could swear he does it differently at least once in the MTV Live n Loud recording, and the one thing that drives me nuts about local artists is that I can never find their lyrics online, so I'll never know exactly what Drive was saying in Pavlov's Dogs and I'm still puzzling over parts of Arrow of Stones by Pathological Lovers.

To anyone who knows the obsessive-compulsive rules-lawyering type that I am, none of that comes as a surprise to you.

So it didn't come as a surprise to me when it was recently pointed out to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) that the lyrics of Money for Nothing by Dire Straits contained the word "faggot".  It's in there three times, in fact, though there exists a special 'radio edit' version that uses "mother" instead.  But then, I've known this since the mid 80s when a friend got Brothers in Arms on vinyl and I purchased my own on cassette shortly after.  Granted, I didn't have the internet to look up the exact lyrics back then, but "faggot" was always pretty unmistakable.  I also understood the overall tone and message of the song, saw the animated video many times, and knew it was Sting singing back-up at the beginning.

When the CBSC recently ruled the word "faggot", and therefore this song, was offensive, I was amongst the chorus of old-schoolers for whom this song was a "classic!" that "you can't mess with!" and who with much fervor exclaimed "it's been 25 years, did no one notice the word 'faggot' until now?!"

I read Mike Doherty's "Censors in dire need of context" and thought "fuck yeah!" and argued you can't tell important stories like American History X without dropping the word "nigger" in there a few times.

Then, as the swell of righteous indignation faded, and with a calmer sense of reason, I read what many others had to say, turned it over in my mind, and things finally began to congeal in a very different way.  I'm still not entirely sure I'm settled on my final position, to be honest, but I definitely have some strong - but calm - opinions, and I've come to the conclusion that there are some vital questions to which I don't have the answers, most of which center around the notion of "The Watershed".  I believe in "The Watershed", and while it's primarily concerned with television as opposed to radio, I think it's the standard that needs to be applied.  So what I need to know, that I don't know, is this:

1.  What time of day was the offending music heard?
2.  What exactly, was the CSBC ruling?  "It can't be played midday, unedited" would be very different than "It can't be played.  Ever.  Period."

It took me some time to arrive at this position, so come with me on the journey, if you will:


Censorship without Context


I believe in individual freedom, but also in individual responsibility, and I believe they must necessarily come hand in hand.  In an adult world, you are free to listen to whatever music you like, however offensive others might find it, provided you accept the responsibility to turn off what you don't like, and don't forcibly subject others to what clearly offends them.  Your house, your rules.  You keep Beyonce off my doorstep, and I'll keep Nine Inch Nails out of your backyard.

So yes, the idea of the CBSC telling me what I can or can't listen to offends me.  But radio censorship existed long before this happened.  Whether because of some legal-ruling of long ago, or because the station simply understands the will of its listeners, the version of Creep by Radiohead you hear at midday will say "so very special" and not "so fucking special".

So the censorship already existed and always has, it's just a question of on which side of the line does something fall.  Money for Nothing?  It's been 25 years.  But communities evolve (thankfully), and so too must those community standards.  So if, in the current social climate, the word "faggot" is taboo, then so be it. Append it to the list of naughty words we don't blurt out over dinner with strangers, and break out the special radio-edit version that has long-existed.

But wait... what about the context in which the word was said?


Censorship with Context


Context should be everything.  As someone familiar with the song, and who knows that someone singing in the first person is not necessarily being literal (David Bowie is not an astronaut, and Gordon Downie doesn't have a brother who escaped from prison), I fail to find Money for Nothing offensive simply because of its inclusion of the word "faggot".  Understand the song; understand why.

A long time ago I read about how, for a long time, Denzel Washington refused to play any role that 'portrayed a black man in a negative light'.  I thought that was admirable, until I heard about how another actor (I believe Kiefer Sutherland playing a racist Klan member in A Time to Kill) was asked in an interview how he felt about playing such a despicable character, only to explain 'If it's an important story that needs to be told, someone has to be willing to play the bad guy.'

We cannot simply start bleeping every occurrence of a word, regardless of place and time, and expect the underlying problem to go away.  More importantly, there are times and places when that word actually needs to be used, to open the door to civil discourse, to bring it out into the light and expose the offense.  Sometimes the story (or song) is important, and getting that message across means someone taking on the role of the villain and using the terrible, naughty words.  When I read "An Open Letter to a 21 Year Old University Student in Corner Brook" by Neil Butler, I couldn't possibly agree more when he so succinctly wrote:  "I think the best way to counter bigotry is through education.  I do not think we can bring an end to bigotry and discrimination by removing opportunity to examine instances where they occur."


Leaving the word "nigger" in Huckleberry Finn is a doorway to discussion: about the time and place in which the book was written, about the meaning, use, and power of the 'N-word' then and now, and about whether or not something long-regarded as a great work of literature gets to retain such accolades amidst ever-changing social standards.  It provides a needed opportunity for education, to examine this instance where it occurs.

But the CBSC's argument, as I understand it, was "... in the case of a song... the exposition of a context is less likely to be present".  Surely, as adults, we're all capable of listening to a musical work in its entirety and judging it based on that overall work.

Capable?  Yes.  But do we?  I pay a great deal of attention to lyrics.  Obsess over them, some might say.  But do others?  I was reminded of two things from long ago.  First, I read from an interview with Sting a long time ago how he found it disturbing how many people used "Every Breath You Take" at their weddings when it was so clearly a song not about love, but about dark, unhealthy obsession.  Second, I remembered "the shoebox incident".

The Shoebox


A decade ago, there came a time when, for about a week, each day at lunchtime several of my coworkers would put on a popular new song by Barenaked Ladies and sing aloud to the chorus each time it came by, while mumbling through or simply ignoring the rest of the tune.  I was familiar with the song.  I knew their grievous blunder.  I bit my lip day after day as they joyfully prattled on, "Shoeboooooxxxx... shoebox of liiiiiffffeeee...."


Finally, be it simply an irritable mood or my undeniable compulsion for accuracy, I spun round in my chair one fateful day and burst their little care-free bubble with the truth:  "It's 'Shoebox of LIES'.  Not 'life'.  LIES."  "Shoebox" is a Barenaked Ladies song which, while sung in an upbeat way, is the tale of a heart-broken young lad disillusioned by the realization that the shoebox of memorabilia he's kept is little more than the physical embodiment of the deception that goes on in relationships.  Or at least, that's my interpretation, but then, that's largely irrelevant.  It's definitely, absolutely a shoebox of lies.  I owned the album.  I had the liner notes.


Context should be everything, even with music on the radio.  And as adults, we're all capable of listening carefully, puzzling it out, determining our interpretation, deciding how we feel about it, and engaging in open, civil discussion on the matter.  Some of us adults are certainly more capable than others, or at least more interested, but nonetheless, there will always be those who won't or don't take the time to listen, to puzzle, to determine, to decide, and to engage both their mouths and their brains.  This is especially true out in the public, where the odds of turning to the next person at the food court to ask if they agree about Jay-Z's veritable ability to infect and destroy every other musician he comes into contact with is highly unlikely to occur.

Public.  There's the rub.

The Watershed

Out in public, things are a little different.  They no longer simply boil down to personal choices and personal responsibility.  If the local radio station is being played in the local market, the option to "turn if off if you don't like it" has slipped from our grasp, so if, as a community, we're going to share that 'music-space', we'll need to come to a consensus as to what's being played.  That's where everyone is supposed to take the responsibility of standing up and making it clear what they do or don't want.  You call the radio station and tell them what you do want to hear, and you tell some sort of regulatory board (i.e. the CBSC) what you absolutely don't want to hear.  Each gathers together all those opinions - on an ongoing and evolving basis - to determine where the lines must be drawn, such that we can all comfortably inhabit that shared music-space together.

And yes, there are still those who will say "if you don't like that store X plays music station Y, who play music containing word Z, shop elsewhere", but herein lies my problem.  After five years of playing step-father, I'm only now starting to recognize the duality of my dilemma.  If you backtrack, you'll find I used the word "adult" four times, once in each section.

"Public" is not comprised solely of "adults", and you cannot 'un-ring' a bell.


And that, ladies and gentlemen, brings me to my current position.

While I am a fan of public, candid discourse, and while I am a strong proponent of individual liberty and responsibility, and while I am neither so ignorant nor so arrogant as to think I can shelter my little girl from the terrors of the world forever, I am tasked with the duty of easing her into the sordid affairs of this messy world bit-by-bit, exposing one tiny corruption at a time, with the opportunity to educate at a pace she can handle, in the hopes of arming her with the necessary understanding and tolerance that by the time she's an adult she will have a proper appreciation for why words like "faggot" sting some people when used in a spiteful context while simultaneously only serving to denigrate the speaker not the subject.

The first song she ever asked us to turn up on the radio was Highway to Hell by AC-DC.  I was elated (anal-retention be damned!) as she sat in the back seat chanting "... hiiiighway -n- hoe!"  I have no idea what she thought it was about.  I suspect she didn't care.


At age six, she's already had conversations about people with different colors of skin and about how sometimes boys fall in love with boys or girls fall in love with girls and how that's ok too.

I'd like to be able to turn on OZ in the car in the morning without fear of being prematurely forced into a conversation about why the word 'faggot' should not cross her lips, while simultaneously trying to get her to school on time.

I'd also like to have some hope that if I turn it back on again at 10pm, there's a chance, however small, that Cop Killer by Bodycount will come rattling through the speakers, screwing up the faces of all kinds of listeners out there.

I don't profess to have the answers for everyone.  I'm not trying to speak for an entire community.  But as I said in the beginning, I feel everyone has a responsibility - not just right - responsibility to decide for themselves and make that position heard.

It's just one man's opinion.