Death Consumes Us

With proper respect to the families of Levon Helm and Dick Clark, the loss of two music icons back-to-back, and the recent passing of Mike Wallace, Whitney Houston, Davy Jones, Don Cornelius, Christopher Hitchens, Steve Jobs, this blog is turning into The Daily Obituary.

And, sad to write, another RIP may be on its way any moment as Bee Gee Robin Gibbs remains in a coma. I think. I'll have to dash over to TMZ to find out if that situation is still on hold. Hang on, I'll be right back.... Okay. He's still stayin' alive for now.

Sorry to say, Boomers, but this is just the beginning of what we'll have to endure for the remainder of our own lives: the increasing domino-roll-out of untimely (in some cases) deaths of one icon after another from part of our generation (as well as our parents) who have influenced our lives in ways we may not realize until the shock and sorrow begins to wear off and we realize our own mortality.

For heaven's sake, even Jonathan Frid, the fabulous Vampire (Barnabas) from TV's late 60's through early 70's' Dark Shadows, also left the earth earlier today (or late yesterday depending on where you are). Is there no mercy anymore? How about spreading it out a bit so that florist's all over the world can have a little breathing space?

In seriousness, though, the death of certain icons can become odd milestones in our own lives. A turning of the page on age. The classic "End Of An Era". I remember the death of Lucille Ball with amazing clarity. "Lucy" represented a bonding in my family. My father and I would look at each other with winks and grins as Lucy Ricardo made one silly move after another to gain attention - just like my mother.

So, when in 1989 I turned on the news before getting into the shower to go to work and heard that she had died, I was startled at my emotional reaction. Sobbing in the shower, my childhood flashed before me and I suddenly knew my "youth" was no more. Despite knowing that she had been in ill health and was not young, she was supposed to live on forever charming the chinks out of our systems for a half hour at a time. And she still does in reruns. We'll always have Lucy.

We'll always have Dick Clark's American Bandstand and New Year's Rockin' Eve to remember him by. Levon Helm's music with The Band will live on. And so it goes with anyone who has left a print in one form or another on the world.

But the reality is that regardless of holograms now raising the dead, the PERSON is no longer with us. Just the memories. And the now popular memes.

RIP once more to all who have passed over the last non-calendar year in particular, because if I go beyond that time period I may want to curl up and just - uh-oh.

Image via: http://derek-santos.blogspot.com