Hey Mike---
I've always loved this song, and tonite I find it especially poignant as well as pretty appropriate. It reminded me that we all recognize and feel personal and familial loss, it's the cost of loving. On August 15 just past I lost my aunt, my godmother, my friend, from a stroke. She was also 87. I was speaking on the phone with her when she had her stroke, and I had to call her neighbor to please check on her and then get the medical help that she needed. She was in the hospital for nine days unresponsive, and I was tasked with the decisions of her care, her end of life directive. Because of covid 19, I was unable to fly from North Carolina into California. I got permission to be tested, but the results were too long in coming and the restrictions required that I quarantine for 14 days if I chose to fly into Sacramento. It was HARD to be unable to do anything, to be able to see her as she suffered this medical emergency. For almost six years, we spoke almost daily. I had been trying to get her to accept that she needed to move out here by me, or into assisted living and she was trying to convince me to move out to her in California with my husband to be closer to her. I hate that I could not be with her, and I felt the loss deep in my heart when I got the 6:15 am call on the 15th that she had passed.
There are those who touch our lives that evoke that same feeling of an almost insurmountable loss. If only we could learn to adapt these feelings to all of humanity, even those with whom we disagree. Today America lost a true icon, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her life and legacy are simply unmatched in the gender wars that she had fought for the rest of us. She LIVED speaking her truth to power. My respect for her is immense. I don't really believe in monuments to honor the achievements of men/women because we often unfairly expect our idols to actually BE false "gods". Everyone has foibles and we all make mistakes but it is often only after we bestow our honors upon others that we discover these things and then we are confused about our adoration. We all also suffer the judgements of society and the whims of changing times, as America is witnessing in our present time. I must admit, however, that I actually might agree that this woman deserves the honor of recognition for her achievements. I would prefer it be in the form of legislation that continues to protect the rights of women that are being stripped away as we speak. This country will miss her more than we even recognize at this point, and I fear the loss may be felt for a very long time. RIP RBG
Sorry to have gone off on a tangent, just on my mind and the song took me there...
PEACE
Nancy