He's a refreshing bastard

When I was a kid and my Mum was on a rant about some hardship or another that my brother and I had wreaked upon her, she would huff and puff until we would feel adequately guilty. She’d know this moment had arrived when we would begin assuring her that we would remedy whatever situation we were in and generally being quite contrite. Once we’d reached this stage of remorse and demonstrated a genuine desire to make change, she would deliver the final nail in the mother-guilt coffin,
“NO!” she’d cry, “Don’t bother. Some other bastard will do it!” By which we all knew she meant her and we would feel terribly bad and rush to assist.

I must have heard that phrase, Some other bastard will do it, so often as a kid that it came as quite a shock one day in the playground at school, to learn what a bastard actually was. It really had nothing to do with my Mum at all. It was the first time that I learned about one word having two meanings. There was the dictionary definition of a bastard that had the playground all a-twitter:
Bas.tard /ˈbastərd/ – a person born of parents not married to each other.
Synonyms: illegitimate child, child born out of wedlock

Then there was the meaning that my Mum could impart with her histrionics:
Bas.tard /ˈbastərd/  – a long-suffering martry to an ungrateful family. In some cultures also referred to as a slave. This bastard is a slave-by-choice, but gosh darn it, if they’d realised what sacrifice and hard work was involved in the role they may have reconsidered this path in life. 
Synonyms: a suffering bastard.

It all leads me to have a tense relationship with the word bastard, as it has always felt like the worst insult. In both definitions of the word. I knew as a kid that being born out of wedlock was something quite shocking. I even remember having a conversation as a young adult about an acquaintance who was pregnant and the first words out of my mouth were,
“But they’re not married!” as if it were almost physically impossible to fall pregnant if one was not married. I recognised the absurdity of that comment as soon as I heard it leave my mouth, but it does illustrate how the word bastard for me was imbued with all things appalling and regrettable.
When Mum began referring to that other bastard I knew that we were addressing something equally as shocking and despicable.

And so friends, I want to share my growth around the word and how I am evolving as a human. First of all, Shea and I have sired our very own bastard and so far we think she’s pretty much the bee’s knee’s, definitely no less superior than her legitimate brother. And so I can report, from personal experience, that bastard children really aren’t all that shocking or despicable.

As to the other definition, the one of the suffering bastard, it was also given a new light recently. Shea and I had a five day trip to Vancouver, sans children. I had a swathe of appointments (all went well and reports are good) and we used the time to have a holiday of a sort. One that consisted of sleeping in and eating at odd hours in children-unfriendly places. One such dimly lit joint, with nary a booster seat in sight, offered us a plethora of alcoholic beverages so that Mountain Dad and I were almost overwhelmed. Anxious to appear suave, like I fit in, like I hadn’t just found one of my children’s old snot rags in my pocket, I played it cool and selected the first drink that I saw that had gin as an ingredient. Transparent Mountain Dad relished the process, reading aloud all the cocktail names, oohing and ahhing with enthusiasm. It was the names that drew him in; Deceitful Appearance, Tea with Mussolini, Sin & Virtue, The Smoke Also Rises and The Suffering Bastard. Why the latter caught him so immediately, we won’t bother delving into, but catch him it did. When our server swung by he had, as usual, a multitude of questions, then asked for more time and then finally committed.
“I’ve decided,” he told her firmly, “that I’d like to please have a Refreshing Bastard.”
“Refreshing Bastard?” she enquired while chortling, “or do you mean a Suffering Bastard?”
 My refreshing bastard did indeed want a Suffering Bastard but I love that both kind of meant the same to him. It endeared the word bastard to me on a whole new level.

Interestingly, the very next day, right after I’d begun writing this post, Refreshing Mountain Dad and I went to a Vancouver Whitecaps soccer match and I learned that whenever the opposing team’s goalie kicks the ball you are to chime in with the hundreds of others in the crowd to yell out “YOU. FAT. BASTARD!” I have no idea why, as he definitely wasn’t fat and I have no data as to the legitimacy of his birth or whether he is despicable or suffering (or refreshing, on that note), but yell out we did. The mob mentality was too much to resist.

So you see friends, words aren’t so simple as other kids in the playground might let on. There’s a whole world of nuances around something as simple as a bastard. I’ve pondered that conundrum as I’ve experienced the word cancer. It’s a word that somewhat defines me of this year but I have no connection to whatsoever. I almost have a physical revulsion when I associate it with me. I can handle all the treatments, but I cannot associate that word with me. I can’t own it.

I can, however, see the next session with my counsellor unfolding before me.
Words and semantics can be so problematic. And so wonderful.

See you soon, all you refreshingly suffering bastards out there.