Dear Tara,
While you gently snore in your magic kingdom, there is just a couple of hours left in this old year. You turned it for me into a year of tender happiness. Your first little words. Your wonderful smile. Your incredible sense of humour. Your tender warmth. I’m amazed every single day how you show me more and more of that surprisingly complete person that is you. My absolute highlight in 2016 was so simple perfect: holding you, drowning into the bottomless depths of your mesmerizing blue eyes.
In a heartbeat it will be 2017. 365 new days to discover, plenty of new things to explore. Outside the world goes ape-shit. Little kids in Syria get bombed out of their childhood, would-be grown up politicians try to forget the misery of countless refugees behind expensive wines and cheap demagogy. A Russian Rasputin hungrily eyes the rest of the world, while all the good people in the USA could not prevent an orange tiny fingered buffoon to be the next president. Both sides in the Israeli conflict lost it, again.
People get caned, raped, beheaded, excommunicated, burned, flogged, shot, murdered, tortured and spit-on in the name of Holy Books and Big Religions. We, in the West, think we are so advanced because women here can bare their legs, or show some cleavage. We forget however that our religious society gets ruled by old men in robes, who openly claim women are inferior, and who follow a man who still thinks he is infallible. I write you this from France, a country that beheaded countless people for the values of fraternity, equality and liberty. The same country that has most of its citizens think some people are more equal than others, with literally thousands of people demonstrating against LBGT rights.
In this end of year, my dear Tara, countless people preach peace, and will wish each other love and happiness. But they still do not talk to their brother or sister for reasons they cannot even remember… they will spit on the poor homeless guy trying to warm himself in a drafty alley. They will light candles, and kiss under the mistletoe, and blame all that’s bad in our society on people who have the wrong colour, religion, or sexual orientation.
People that pretend to care and lead, are still selling their soul and our future to the old baronies of political power, fossil energy monopoly, and absolute control. While they cook this planet to the flying hillbillies, some enlightened souls are trying to find a way to secure a second earth.
I wish you a fabulous 2017, my dear daughter. More words to express all those wonderful thoughts. More days to wonder over all the sunny mornings, starry nights, delightful flowers, and breath-taking animals. I wish you endless conversations with your favourite teddy bear, and tender moments with all the people that care for you. You are loved, my little Tara, by people of all continents, of every magnificent colour that inhabits this planet. That love and warmth will help you grow, will help you understand diversity, kindness in all its subtle forms, and the countless wonders of variety.
I wish you well, a year full of magic, a year of slowly growing and fully inhaling life. Don’t worry, I’ll be right there… this is your year. You are my future.
Love,
Dad
