December 10, 2023
Dear family and friends,
Seasons greetings everyone. 2023 was a very full year with the usual highs and lows. As always, we are grateful for time spent with loved ones and the blessings we share.
This being my 75th year, I decided to detail most events for posterity along with pictorial records. It seems our health and memories are on a slow (thankfully) but steady decline. Unfortunately, we ended 2022 with a Covid Christmas. We happily hosted the annual Brook celebration on Dec 18 and the virus snuck in uninvited. After two years of careful living and five immunizations, Bill and I were both seriously ill and voluntarily homebound for about three weeks.
Luckily, we were back in good health for Bill’s 83rd celebration (Feb 8) at our house.
Since then, regular activities have included birthdays of family (a growing group) and friends, get-togethers with the NAIT gang, trips to Vermilion, book club meeting, writing group gatherings, a few more conferences both in person and online, and “working on the book.”
Yes, the book project persisted for another full year. Co-author Andrea and I started in April 2021 and When Men Buy Sex: Who Really Pays? continued to demand attention with multiple edits and proof layouts the last six months. We finally submitted our copyright Nov 30 so are awaiting publishing details. Commitment remained consistent at about 600 hours a year.
We enjoyed our annual trip to Mexico in early April with Suzie & Colin, their family, her folks, and our mutual friends the Zambo family.
| Grandma King turned 98, no party at her request. She wants to save her energy for her 100th. (Save the date: April 21, 2025) She was hospitalized in August and has since moved to extended care in Vermilion where she is able to receive daily meals and personal assistance as required. Her health is stable although her mobility, sight, and hearing are compromised. She seems settled but does find the days long at times. |  |
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Our publishing company, FriesenPress, advised we should plan to spend as much time promoting our book as we did to write it. We are not yet sure what all that will entail. In the meantime, co-author Andrea Heinz, being much younger and more energetic, also produced a eight-part docuseries named Labeled. One segment premiered in Edmonton in May. Check it out on Facebook. She is presently searching for a commercial buyer such as YouTube or Netflix. Also included in the photo is my mentor Mufty Mathewson of Redress Photography fame. Here we are at City Hall June 5 celebrating Seniors’ week. One of my poems was chosen for inclusion, surprisingly since it challenges City policy. (A copy is included at the end of my letter.) |
June highlight was family camp weekend at Long Lake hosted by Colin and Suzie at their cabin. Some brought their own trailers, others bunked in the holiday trailer / bunkhouse (which can sleep10 in a pinch). The grandsons spent much time fishing between feasts and pontoon rides.
| August highlight was my 75th birthday party, held on our 28th anniversary. (Bill and I met June 1993 and married Aug 19, 1995, the day after my 47th birthday.)
My most memorable present was an early gift from Suzie – tickets for Rod Stewart! What an amazing show! We hosted a wonderful backyard party for about 40, definitely downsized from five years ago. Thanks again to everyone who helped with setting up, decorations, food, etc. and Della for the fabulous cake! |
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| Our celebrations were intermingled with sadness as is the pattern of life. Interment for Bill’s friend Bernie was held mid-July at Holy Cross Cemetery (where we already have our plots reserved.) One grandson’s girlfriend lost a brother in Sept to multiple medical complications. Another grandson lost his dad completely unexpectedly in early October. I lost a friend and former colleague, Danielle, in early November. She was the founder of the Edmonton Memorial Walk for Missing and Murdered Women (2006) and we participated ins many projects together before loosing contact the last few years. Her passing was also sudden and unexpected. RIP. |
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Another highlight was Thanksgiving with the whole gang and special visitors from Manitoba.
My sister Betty turned 70 on Dec 7 so we celebrated with a small party, her request, at their house.
Otherwise, all extended family are reasonably well. Many plans for the New Year are still pending. Hopefully, they include a book launch before too long and other promotional activities. Check out www.whenmenbuysex.ca for updates.
We have some West Jet credits to book by Jan so we will be flying somewhere.
Once again thank you to all who have blessed our lives with friendship and caring. We hope for continued connections. Very best wishes to all for a peaceful Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year. Take good care of yourselves and each other. Time is precious. Enjoy and be grateful.
Love from Kathy and Bill
Why Sanctioned Servitude?
Sacred
Women are sacred
Life-giving, birthing new generations
Nurturing body, heart, mind, and spirit.
Why would our city take that away?
License women to be sold? Provide safe sites for sexual consumers?
Harm “reduction,” say they, the well-intentioned but misguided.
Violations of vulnerable “managed” in a monetized market,
public generally unaware that “body rub” means “blow job.”
“Stigma,” they say, kills the missing and murdered,
greedy men not violent if entitlement protected.
Sacred
Women are sacred
Sharing relationships, tenderness, care
Sacred intimacy links partners, builds family, strengthens community.
Shared common vision bridges social divides.
Women deserve to be respected, not relegated to products for purchase.
Our city claims to support inclusion, well-being, accessibility, excellence.
Surely this means training, opportunity, connections, social nets
NOT sanctioned sexual servitude of systemic inequality.
All unity comes from the Sacred circle of life.
Sacredness restored signals hope and healing for living creation.
Wisdom is wrought from watching the marginalized mistreated.
“Anti-trafficking” calls need further interpretation
when consumer demands demonstrate desecration.
Certified commodification spews country wide devastation.
Innocents trafficked across the nation; intimacy traded for cash injection.
To our dismay, the price we pay is loss of sacred connection.
submitted by Kathy King, April 2023
The significance of the question is that Edmonton continues to license brothels in direct defiance of federal legislation passed in 2014. Our mission is deterrence of commercial sexual consumers.
