George C. Cooper - a tribute

Today marks 10 years since my father died, succumbing to a combination of cancer and hernia complications - may his soul rest in eternal tranquility. There will never be a single human that will influence my life the way he did. Mark the period to that sentence.

There is a way that December 25 puts people into a strange mindset that is so difficult to comprehend - all of a sudden, you see moderate normal people transformed into extremist abnormal beings; ostentatious self-indulgence rules; bingeing and all sorts of strange behaviour take over the masses.

As I consoled myself with the departing of father and friend, I somehow gathered enough courage to ease my tensed-up mind from planning funeral logistics and arrangements by focusing on the cult-like celebration of the day. I was tensed-up just because, like everybody else, I had earlier spent much in preparation for December 25 and therefore I had barely enough money on me. For a guy who is in his early 20s, struggling to survive, taking full responsibility of siblings (father had walked away from home by then), single-handedly supporting my mother, putting a new roof on her house, and attending to all sorts of situations that should normally have been my father's work to do, it was simply waaay toooo much!

Since that time, I realised that almost everything that people do on December 25 has no touch of godliness whatsoever - evidence to that effect is strewn all around the places of leisure and entertainment. Clearly, it is a cleverly concealed pagan celebration that seems to have survived the test of time.

Ironically, it was that period of bereavement that afforded me the opportunity to reflect on the much celebrated day and found it to be worthless in terms of godliness, but worth everything in terms of economics, collective public health and morale.