Buck Flack Friday!

You shouldn’t hate anything but…I hate ‘black friday.’ I despise the consumerism and mania that it encourages.  I find it abhorred that the nation can deftly vacillate from heartfelt appreciation for the things we have- to unabashed and rapid accumulation of new things.  Things we are convinced we have to get NOW, why?  Mostly because the idiot box said so.  I fundamentally object to the sentiment that a sale should motivate you to buy a thing that you do not NEED but WANT.  If you get something on sale you are not saving money, YOU ARE SPENDING IT.  Spending money is the opposite of saving money.

But I digress…

This year I got a whole new reason to dislike the day after Thanksgiving.  While watching a movie with the boys,  I got a call from my mom.

My dad had suffered a massive coronary.

He came home from brunch with my Grandpa and Uncles, said he didn’t feel good so he was going to go lay down….he never got up.

My mom found him in the midst of the attack, called the medics, preformed CPR but… it was no good.

He was declared dead at the hospital three hours later.

He was 58.

Sudden and unexpected are understatements.

It was difficult to be a world away from my family.  Heart wrenching, to be on the phone and hear a waiting room filled with the sounds of my family’s grief.

To be the only one not there.

I didn’t get to say goodbye.  They did.  It was hard to think that what turned out to be the last four years of my dad’s life I was 3000 miles away.

But…

As I watched the boys dance around the living room I knew that I had made the right choice all those years ago.  Because of them, I have not a single regret about any of it.  I knew my dad better than almost everyone else in this world.  We could not have been closer and had no unfinished business.  When people die we all wish we have more time but “you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.”

I was in a good place to go through this, many of his friends and family were not so well equipped.  His memorial was put together within a week and more than 300 people showed up.  We were flabbergasted.

So many people were touched by him.  He was a true original, a man who believed the importance of personal charity.  In his memory my sister and I started the WWDD? (what would Dennis do?) homeless pack protect:

https://www.facebook.com/WWDDHPP

We did this in an effort keep alive a practice that he held dear, please check it out.  The page should explain it all.  I would love to spread this simple concept of kindness that he made such an important part of our lives growing up.  It is based on the ground breaking thought that the old sweatshirts hanging in your closet have the potential to save someone freezing to death, right now. Perhaps it is ironic that he died on a day when people run around getting ‘great deals’ on nonessential items while the people around the corner are trying to find away to live through the night.

What would the world look like if instead of going out en masse giving our money to big cooperations, people expended the same amount of money and time on helping the people they pass on the streets while shopping.

This is not a charity or an organization to collect money.  It is simply an idea, for a personal act of kindness.  I hope that you take the time to check it out.

Thank you for reading I hope that you will all participate and make a huge difference in the lives of those around us who are less fortunate than ourselves.