Another day spent watching films due to feeling poorly, still.  Disney films are our easy go to option.  

Tangled was one of them.  I know it is fairly old now.  But maybe it is because I’m feeling somewhat delicate.  But the film made me think.  
The Princess-Rapunzel, was snatched at a young age.  Each year never knowing if she was still alive or whether they’d still see her again, her parents would celebrate her birthday.  There seemed to be no thought that these yearly celebrations were wrong. The village would get together let off the lanterns, gather together for thoughts of the lost Princess.  

They continued this for 18 years, until she returned home safe and sound.  Alive and well.  (it’s Disney it wouldn’t be anything else). 

As viewers we know she’s alive.  

When I first watched the film, the lantern scene was a beautiful scene of love and support to the King and Queen,I was also not a bereaved parent.  

No matter how many times the film is watched the lantern scene is still so romantic.  

(Google image) 

When she went missing no-one threw thoughts of blame on the parents,  they should have been watching her. Or question the birthday celebrations for the last little girl, years and years after her disappearance. 

I can hear you saying, “But it’s just a Disney Film, a kid’s film”.  

Yes that is exactly what it is, they, the King and Queen were lucky their daughter returned home.  

As I was watching, and actually Time hop on Facebook brought a memory up, of how disrespected bereaved parents, or parents with lost children are.  

How every single person has an opinion of some sort.  

I was reminded today, of how people assumed we had ruined the children.  How we have shrines of our dead daughter. Crying all of the time.  

No lanterns, no villages, no romantic visions of bringing a town together to remember children gone, because let’s face it,  there is nothing like it.  After a while there’s boredom I guess five years is a long time, so imagine at eighteen it’ll be almost as if none of it ever happened. 

I’m not saying that lanterns need to be set off every single year, because we’ll they’re pretty bad for the environment.  But to know that if parents, whether bereaved or they do still have an ounce of hope after 18 years that they still have people around them the same as the very first. 

The Wet Wipe Diaries.