Dead Souls

[allegro]

oh don't get me wrong, I "get" death on a personal level as a very real thing, and not some romanticized gothic notion. Every year we're going to lose people we love, personally and on another larger, more public stage.

Nothing takes away from how fucking insane this has been as a year though, especially for music and iconic personalities. People only resonante from where they're coming from, and that's why cross-generational figures like Carrie Fisher feel very personal to people on a developmental level - they see her has an icon from that special period of time where they can first recall consciousness being a concept they have a memory of. I've heard a lot of people state that she was their "first crush," which in context could be seen as crass or even possibly disgusting (depending on where you're approaching this from), but I thought that was endearing, and I think Carrie would have thought that observation was hilarious.

I'm a fan of gallows humor though; in at least as much as it can ride the razor-thin line of bad taste. There's truth in hearing people exclaim that they remember falling in love with a fantasy sci-fi princess, especially when she proved to be so much more than that.

But look at this list. Look at the ages listed on that list. The Grim Reaper is going to start taking older people.

They just ain't gonna live forever. This ain't Neverland, natch. And when a childhood "crush," be it Farrah Fawcett, Carrie Fisher, or whomever, that generation of "crushes" are senior citizens, now.

Bowie wrote "Blackstar" and MOST of his last several albums about this very subject.


This is all more about people mourning their own loss of innocence and their own childhoods and the realization that we are mortal, really. We aren't Peter Pan, we can't stay in that childhood land forever, and these deaths represent a harsh reality for several generations.

Debbie Reynolds was 84 and she died the day after her daughter, Carrie Fisher, who was 60; Debbie's last words were "I want to be with Carrie." The reality of that does not hit me, personally, as I am not thinking of ME when I read that: I am thinking of THEM.

And their families. Carrie Fisher left a 24-yr-old daughter.