Passages
When you’re young it’s traumatic c when one of the icons of your generation dies, such as the deaths of JFK, RFK, MLK, or John Lennon were to my generation, or those of the Big Bopper, Buddy Holley and James Dean were to the previous generation, or say Glenn Miller to the previous generation even though they were hardened from the losses in war. Those deaths before their times are always hard to take but what I’m finding harder are the ever increasing “normal” passings of those who were household names as I grew up or came into my adulthood. It seems that hardly a week goes by now without losing a few. Today it’s Anita O’Day at 87 and Betty Comden at 89. Anita O’Day was one of the finest jazz singers of all time, and Betty Comden co -wrote the lyrics to many of the songs I grew up with from musicals, TV and movies. Last week it was the venerable Ed Bradley and so on. The older you get the more time seems to become compressed and the passings of icons only increases that feeling at that of your own mortality.
Comment from diane oser
Time: 11/24/2006, 12:43 pm
Doug, you have succinctly said what I have been feeling and observing as time marches on. I also have been experiencing a distancing in the ‘now’, as I’m not familiar with many of the up and coming new ‘icons’, and tend to cling to the past and familiar names with which we grew up. Each new loss drives home the fact of our mortality.