My wife, Doralyn, has uttered the following proclamation a lot lately. From it, apparently I am supposed to gather that I am "just as bad as the boys!" Quite often, this proclamation is prefaced by an "omigod" as in "Omigod, you're just as bad as the boys!"
Now it's essential that you know the boys are not all that bad. But they are boys, after all. And I'm just as bad as them, from what I've heard.
My wife's biggest problem is that she's having a hard time adjusting to the routines around here. By a clear majority of 4-1 it's quite obvious that the dirty dishes simply are to be tossed into the sink. Not rinsed and put into the dishwasher. The extra floor space in all our rooms was designed to be covered by dirty clothes. Otherwise it is simply unused usable space. And where's the logic to that?
Speaking of logic, why is it necessary for a cat to have fresh drinking water every day? For goodness sake, as cute and cuddly as our cats are, they are still descendants of ancient and mighty jungle cats, who often went without water for days and, when they did finally find some, were content to drink out of the same slimy mud hole a dead zebra was floating in!
My wife excels when under stress. What reason, then, to give plenty of notice for anything, when she has proven, over and over, that she can be handed a form requiring filling out, permission, and a twenty dollar bill while in the garage on her way to her car and holding two different kinds of drinks, three assorted bags and purses and work files and manage to fill the form, produce the money and not run one of us through with the hedge clippers, conveniently within arm's reach? And she thinks we're bad for wanting to see her reach her potential?
As I mentioned earlier, the boys are not even all that bad. If they were constantly robbing the Mac's Milk store, getting their drug-addled girlfriends pregnant, failing school and lopping off body parts in shop and then Doralyn said, "Omigod, you're just as bad as the boys!" well....I guess then I'd feel bad about it!
The fact of the matter is that the boys are pretty damn good and I don't (for the most part) mind being compared to them. They're all smart, intuitive, loving and kind and I would be happy to be as bad as that! I guess the fact that she seems surprised, somehow, that I am "just as bad as the boys" is a fair bit better than her being astounded that I am "just as good as the boys!"
I sat in a Timmie's the other day, had a double-double and engaged in a coffee shop chat with a friend. I can't even tell you how many times the two of us have done this and there are thousands of us across Canada who do this on a daily basis.
Normally the conversations touch on the mundane--our plans for the weekend, the weather, how our days are shaping up, how our common acquaintances are getting along and the like.
We don't normally get into deep, almost philosophical discussions about anything really, we kind of see our visits to Tim's as being kind of a break from all of that. The other day, though, was different.
My friend had been listening to some of the details of an ongoing court case here in London, that of the alleged killer of Victoria (Tori) Stafford. For those of you who might not be from my part of Canada, Tori Stafford was a young girl from Woodstock who was abducted from her school as it let out, taken by car to the Guelph area, sexually assaulted in the back seat of the car and then murdered, with a claw hammer. The accused's girlfriend has already been tried and convicted of first-degree murder and has provided the description of how Tori's life ended. The people of London and the surrounding area have been assaulted themselves by the details of the case, which have been outlined daily in the papers. None of us have been spared the grisly details and I would guess that many of us have stopped reading, for our own reasons.
My friend felt compelled to talk about this case today, as we sat there over our coffees.
He is someone who angers easily when it comes to the victimization of anyone, particularly the young and defenseless and he felt compelled that day to offer his opinion as to how the perpetrators of this crime should be ultimately punished. Without a doubt, he thought, they should be executed.
I'm sure many of us feel the same way, in our disgust and anger. It is almost impossible not to. These days, though, capital punishment is not an option, rightly or wrongly, and we are left with what seem like inappropriate options for dealing with these kinds of perpetrators. The fact that it will be our responsibility for likely many years to come to house, feed and protect her killers has riled my friend and many others. Our only option is to make sure that these people are never allowed to do the same thing to anyone else.
Personally, I have always been against capital punishment. I understand the disgust, heartbreak and anger which some crimes cause. The contradiction that capital punishment presents to me is that on one hand we see murder as being the most heinous of crimes. The measured response to murder that capital punishment suggests is to murder someone, yet again. If, in fact, murder is bad then we need to ensure that we do not engage in it.
I presented this as a point of view to my friend and he admitted that he hadn't really looked at that way. But, indeed, if I were the family member of someone who'd been murdered then I'm not so sure I'd feel so merciful, either.
At the end of our discussion, I suggested a totally different option. I suggested, in this particular case, simply letting the murderers go free! My friend looked at me in shock. I explained in the following manner.
Envision a courtroom scene wherein Tori's killers have been convicted and are awaiting sentencing. As a sentence, the judge tells the two of them, in the midst of a room jam-packed with Tori's family, friends and well-wishers that they are free to go. And at that point, the judge, bailiffs and any attending police officers simply walk away.
My friend understood what I was suggesting and smiled.
I suppose this might be justice in the purest sense; the consequences you suffer are commensurate with the crime you commit.
This, of course, will not happen, nor should it.
This is more or less where our talk ended at Tim's that day. It wasn't what we usually end up chatting about. I will wager that at some point that day another couple or group of coffee-drinkers sat and talked about Tori and quite likely expressed the same outrage and bemoaned the whole justice system. I also imagine opinions were offered on why people like her killers even exist in this world, what can be done to identify them earlier and what can be done with them afterwards.
As you might have noticed, I have not named either the current defendant or his accomplice. I did not choose to leave them nameless due to any regard for their anonymity. I believe that one of the rights you have as a human is the right to a name. I believe that when you begin to act in a sub-human way then you have given up the right to be referred to by name. At least, in this blog. So be it.
Okay, I didn't intend to spend so much of this blog talking about Tori Stafford. I kind of meant to spend this time talking more about how coffee shops serve as community sounding boards and, more simply, as places of congregation. All that for another day, I guess. In the meantime, I have graced this page with pictures of Tori. It seems as though lately I've talked about nothing but death, dying and the afterlife. I really meant to do something different today but such was not the case, as it turns out. Her pictures have helped. They have helped by taking some of the ugliness away.
In my last blog, I offered the suggestion that Heaven might, in fact, simply be a place where you end up doing all your favourite things.
It didn't really occur to me at the time but then I started to think about, given that definition, what Heaven would look like for ME.
Here's what I came up with, in no particular order.
Walking, hand in hand, with my wife, Doralyn, strikes me as a little slice of heaven. It has, from day one.
Making an incredible save in ball hockey is hard to beat. To throw out a little of the miraculous, in the truest sense of the word, for a bunch of guys to see and then remember is an incredible feeling.
Blogging is wonderful. To have that instant audience and get more or less instant feedback is an altering experience, if you are inclined to be any kind of writer.
Sex, of course. And it is even better with a like-minded partner. I remember thinking as I was writing the last blog that perhaps a good definition of heaven would simply be one eternal orgasm. Except that we would likely get bored with it after awhile!
A good morning coffee and the paper.
Solitude. It can come in a variety of ways, times and places and occasionally is invaluable. There can also occasionally be two of you there.
Music. Playing it or listening to it. Hundreds of different types of musical instruments around the world from cultures that have no common familiarity and they can all be tuned together. This tells you something about the nature of music.
Coming home and seeing my wife's car in the driveway.
Golf. A long, straight drive. A high, arching second shot. And a short right-to-lefter, for birdie.
Driving through the Rockies. Something about this was ingrained in me when I was just a young boy. It may go back even further than that as, generations ago, my ancestors were true pioneers in the Rockies. Hard to beat.
Blowing raspberries on my kids' bare bellies. They're in their 20's and 30's now, so it doesn't happen very often anymore...
Gibsons, B.C. Where we usually ended up after our trip through the mountains. It has a magical quality to it which seems to infest all who visit with any regularity, especially children (but adults are not immune!)
So these are some of the things you might find in my Heaven. I know there are many others, life is full of wonderful things that often we run into on a daily basis. And there is enough variety in them that you never seem to get bored or tired.
As I've said before, I am in no hurry to discover what Heaven actually is or whether it even exists. I can grasp little bits of it here on earth and that is fine with me. I also believe that if there is no Heaven then the worst thing that can happen to you when you pass is to enter the state of not having been born.
When I think of all the millenia that passed before I came into this world, the rise and fall of the dinosaurs, continents shifting, ice ages, dark ages, wars, explorations and discoveries, suffering and magnificent achievements and the fact that I sailed through all of them in blissful ignorance makes me think there really is no fear in returning to that state.
My best guess, though, is that Heaven will find me safe in the warmth of all the things above, sharing them with the people I have loved and those who have loved me.
