My daughter Shannon was born in 1987. I was only 24 and I was woefully unprepared to be a dad. I hadn’t read up on parenting or researched modern methods and strategies of early childhood development. Since I was the first of my friends to have a child, I couldn’t go to them for advice either. Of course, I had my parents, but the generational tide is strongest during the child-rearing years and I was determined to battle back against outdated concepts like, “spare the rod and spoil the child” or “kids should be seen and not heard.” As for exactly how I would do that, I had no idea, and I couldn’t have imagined the role that princesses would play in finding my way.
One night, not long after she was born, little Shannon just wouldn’t settle so I decided I would read to her. Not from a child’s book but from one of my old favourites, “The Call of the Wild”. Jack London wasn’t exactly an author who validated modern parenting or even modern ideals but he loved animals and the outdoors and I assumed that for an infant, the voice not the words, was the most important thing. Over the subsequent weeks and months, I continued to read to Shannon from books by Farley Mowat, Herman Melville, even the dark Victorian tales of Charles Dickens. I honestly don’t know if it had much of an impact, other than to calm her down when not much else would, but a part of me suspects that it played a role in her early development. She was walking by 9 months and having conversations when she was just 18 months old.
By then, I had transitioned from reading her classic literature to reading classic children’s books like Horton Hears a Who or Green Eggs and Ham. She loved them all but even Dr. Seuss felt dated and I wanted something we could call our own. With the help of my sisters, I discovered “The Paperbag Princess” by Canadian author Robert Munsch. Shannon absolutely LOVED that story and I loved reading it to her because it was the antithesis of what my generation had been brought up to believe. In this story, the Princess saved the Prince, and then quickly realized she didn’t really need the Prince at all – walking happily off on her own, into the sunset as an independent young woman. We wore out two versions of that book.
The next logical step after successfully sharing my love of books with Shannon, was to share my love of movies, and so at only two years old, I took her to the theatre for the first time to see “All Dogs Go to Heaven.” We sat in front of the flickering silver screen at Capital Theatre in Downtown Kingston – a father and his daughter – and watched Charlie the German Shepherd and Itchy the Basset Hound try to save the young girl who could talk to animals. From that point forward, Shannon was a movie buff. When we weren’t at the theatre, we rented or purchased hundreds of movies including the Wizard of Oz, The Land Before Time, American Tail and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – or as she called them – the “Engine Turtles.” She watched them all, over and over again, memorizing lines and falling in love with the characters. Then came “The Princess Bride.” Her mother and I had seen it at the theatre the year that Shannon was born but her mom wasn’t a fan. I absolutely loved it, so I purchased the video, but Shannon’s mom thought it might be too scary for a child. I held back for a while but this film-buff-in-the-making was clamouring for more, so one day, I decided to show her this magical movie. Of course, she loved it. We watched it so many times together that the dialogue became a part of our shorthand and while she still got startled almost every time Fezzik threw the rock into the boulder beside Wesley, the Rodent of Unusual Size didn’t frighten her at all and neither did the six-fingered man. When her brother was old enough, she sat with him to watch the movie and in a tender display of sisterly love, she would put her arm around his tiny shoulder during the scene with the boulder or the ROUS. I treasured watching her grow and learn and develop into the smart, independent young woman she would become and I give a lot of credit to those princesses and to our shared love of stories in print or on film.
Sadly, those days are long gone. Shannon is 38, has children of her own and doesn’t talk to me anymore. I often write letters to her that I don’t send, or emails that never leave my draft folder. Occasionally I’ll even throw in some of the old Princess Bride shorthand but, absent that father/daughter context, the quotes are emptier somehow.
When I heard the recent news about Robert Munsch’s diagnosis of dementia and then Rob Reiner’s tragic death, I couldn’t help but think back to the stories and movies we shared so long ago. I wanted to write her and reminisce about those days but with age and a continued estrangement, it’s more difficult than ever to open myself up to the inevitable heartbreak. The last thing I want to do is risk damaging the memories I have. I carry those moments around like charms on a bracelet that once connected me to her through the power of words, moving images, and a couple of strong-willed princesses.