Five years

Photo montage for Dad's funeral & visitation

I was thinking of my Dad today; it is the fifth anniversary of his passing. It seems surreal that it is five years later and that it is snowing, and I'm here remembering. It is real/ yet not real-- for me he is always vibrantly alive, sparkling with his humour and intelligence, gentle love and support. And yet, he is definably gone as well; no physical hugs, no sharing of stories, passing along of books, awkwardly and accidentally pressing the wrong button on his electric chair while bending over for that good-bye hug.

It is the dichotomy of death; wherein you hang on with all of your will to that which you do not wish to lose, and at the same time there is the ultimate letting go. You cannot hold it strongly enough for it to stay, it can never be that way. The soul slips through your fingers and joins the ether; that great unknown beyond; whether to comfort, omnipotent awakening or the void. We don't know; no one has come back and said: yea or nae.

Gathering at the Royal Canadian Legion 618 Stittsville
ON for Norm Marsden's memorial.

I feel bittersweet this morning; an aching poignant squeeze in my heart. I miss him. But it is not the heart wrenching stab of excruciating loss of February 5th, 2009. It was so raw; a wound that would never heal; just bleeding out the wrenched scream of 'no---'.

There is that deep ache of the past wound; like the broken bone, healed that foretells of storms. Tears stand behind the eyes; to be loosed if (should it happen) a song randomly appears on the radio; whether 'Men of Harlech', or 'Singing the Spirit Home' or (and this did happen last year: 'I come from the land down under' while shopping for groceries)...

I miss him in a thousand tiny ways that seem insignificant, but they pile up like the grains of snow swirling, rising into an 8 foot drift on one side of the house and nothing on the other. Significant in that together they build the wavering remembered image of him, from all those tiny thoughts and feelings.

I find myself watching a movie and saying 'Dad would love this--I can hear him laughing right now!'. I am partway through a book and want to share a passage with him (as he would always share with us around the table). I am at a restaurant with Mom and our eyes meet, and we know Dad would love the food, or the atmosphere, or the server; using his 'universal language' of a big smile and dancing eyes to immediately cement a nascent friendship.

I miss him.

In ten years; my memories will be dimmer; the strongest ones will be of my childhood, swinging; hanging onto his thumbs as the enormous giant strength of my Dad lifted from the ground and made me laugh. My memories of him at his end will be dimmer; I will be hanging onto the warm, loving images I sort and sift; choosing the best and turning them like jewels in my mind.

But, Carl Hiaasen said things better... a character's eulogy that Mom chose to represent my Dad:

"He was a fighter, a real tiger, but he had a generous heart.
He was an idealist who believed in the innate decency and honesty of everyone he met.
He faced profound sadness in his life but he never let himself be defeated by it.
He never lost his sense of humour or his optimism.
He was one of the most positive and unselfish persons.
He chose a simple, ordinary life because he believed that was the secret to true happiness.
He wasn't perfect.
He had weaknesses as all of us do.
Impulsive moments, blind spots, and lapses in judgment.
He wasn't a perfect person but he was a truly good person and we'll all miss him dearly."

Just Stop

Ok.

Some people get extremely excited at the proposal of something new coming their way. And, new things can be fun. Unfortunately, certain things aren't really new, are they? They're redone old things that are pretending to be new. And that is not a good thing. That's actually pretty depressing; especially if you really liked the 'old' thing better and all the sparkles and glitter on it just makes it something you wish you'd never invested your emotions into in the first place.

Most people realize that when something isn't broken, you should not undo all the screws, replace them with gum and spaghetti and then put it back together again. It wasn't broken to begin with...and it sure is not going to work when you're finished fiddling with it. Please, for the love of whatever religious or spiritual power you tip your hat to: do not redux, reboot, rewrite, re-do, re-configure, twist-up, bend-over non-broken iconic superhero characters, books, movies and the like.

I'm not being a whiner; I do think some re-jiggering and mash-ups of genres can be fun and that cool things pop out of unexpected places (zombies & everything; pirates & everything; ninjas & everything; sharks & apes...) But, really. Think about it. Do you really, really REALLY need to re-tell yet another rendition of a known super hero movie?

The ancient Greeks used to  attend plays and went in knowing the script by heart. They'd watch the same plays over and over again. Is the current crop of reduxed comic movies and books just a version of Greek theatre? Is retelling Spiderman, Superman and the Hulk what people want to experience? Can't we just agree to be content with a version of the heroes' stories and continue to write new stories within that context and see what happens next? Do we have endure the retelling of everything from the beginning and grind the ORIGIN in audiences' faces, yet again?

We know Superman is the last son of Krypton, we know Uncle Ben dies, we know Bruce Banner has anger issues, we know Bruce Wayne's parents die. We know these things. This leaves studios with a couple of options: Write Something New. (AGGGGH!) Ok, no, I know branding and money and test audiences reveal that Writing Something New is dangerous. Dangerous-- if you're on the wrong side of it, can either kill you, or make you extremely poor.

That leaves the studios with: Write Something Within Context. Safer, for sure. But it requires some reading, a bit of research and a (hopefully) love and respect for the material one is handling. Accept that it's OK if you can't get the original cast back, and they're off someplace doing legitimate theatre. Viewers aren't dummies. We really aren't. Honestly. We know what Clark Kent looks like. He's the guy with nice hair and glasses who stutters around Lois Lane. We know what the Hulk looks like. Truth to tell, when I watched Hulk II, I literally thought it was Hulk II. I thought it was a continuation of the Hulk story; because he is an iconic, easily recognizable character. I didn't need to see the original actors to recognize Bruce Banner. For me, for that movie, somehow it all worked.

Is it so difficult to continue a superhero's story and not have to retell his beginnings? Things don't have to end in trilogies. They can just keep on going (look at the endless Planet of the Apes movies from the 60's) You can have spin-offs and 'son-of' or 'daughter-of' stories, leaping from iconic characters. What about movie serials ("Zorro's Black Whip"). Pick up the story and get going with it. Try a new villain once in awhile. How about Superman vs someone who isn't just some human millionaire? That might be interesting. Or, Batman vs someone who isn't a gibbering lunatic?

Please, be brave and patient.  Take the time to read the background material; make use of the wealth of comic stories that have piled up for decades behind iconic characters and see what you can do to continue those tales and write in the spirit of those characters. Don't reboot, redux, reconfigure, rise Phoenix-from-the-ashes with yet another retelling of an old, dead horse. We KNOW the Origin Stories. Surprise us. (Or Write Something New).

Or make all the male characters girls. That would also be ok.

Cheers,  
Suzanne.

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