Death or Glory

The Wall Street Journal has a fairly informative article about the affect losing a parent has on children. Most of the article sounds about right to me, although while it focuses on the personal loss of a parent it says nothing about the effect that coming face to face with the suddenness, inevitability and finality of death itself can have on a kid.

But more egregiously it stumbles by coming out of the gate with the dorm-hallway stoned philospher age old question of "Would you give up a year of your life to have one more day with your late mother or father?"

Well, sure. Anybody would. But do they mean the final year, when some kid gets paid $2/hour to change my diaper and I'm blathering on and on for hours that I can't get it straight in my head which Dick was first in Bewitched, York or Sergeant? I mean, I'd give that year up for a lot of things. A day at the Playboy Mansion with a sock full of Spanish Fly. A day in the Yankees dugout during a game. Hell, I ain't had a good year since 1985, so I'd give up one of those fucking years for that stuff. A day as Audrina's shower curtain? Hell yeah.

A more challenging question would be something like "would you give up the last TEN years of your life if you could live the rest of your life eating what you wanted without gaining weight?" or "would you give up the last TWENTY years of your life if you could be married to Megan Fox?" I mean, make the shit interesting, at least. Yes, I would give up ten years of my life to be in the cast of The Real World: Wasilla, AK