End of an Era

We're already two weeks into the new year, but I'm still thinking about the passing of 2009, the last year of the aughts, as some have begun to call that first decade of our new century. Among other things, I'm struck by so many deaths -- especially among artists, writers, and performers: Pat Hingle, Patrick McGoohan, Ricardo Montalban, Andrew Wyeth, John Updike, James Whitmore, Robert Anderson, Horton Foote, Ron Silver, Natasha Richardson, Maurice Jarre, Marilyn Chambers, Bea Arthur, Marilyn French, Dom DeLuise, David Carradine, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Gale Storm, Karl Malden, Mollie Sugden, Allen Klein, Robert McNamara, Walter Cronkite, Frank McCourt, Budd Schulberg, John Hughes, Les Paul, Don Hewitt, Ted Kennedy, Erich Kunzel, Larry Gelbart, Henry Gibson, Jody Powell, Patrick Swayze, Mary Travers, William Safire, Soupy Sales, Claude Levi-Strauss, Edward Woodward, Gene Barry, Jennifer Jones.

Of course, this is just a very partial list of those I felt some connection to. These were some of those who had garnered a little fame or notoriety in my limited sphere. Hearing of their passing was like learning that some part of myself, some fraction or bit of my own treasured past, had now become officially recoverable only in memory, or by recalling something written or captured on audio or video. Although I did not know a single one of those people, never actually met any of them, they have now officially become part of the past rather than the present or future. Of course, I can still summon them up as I always did. Since they were never physically present to me, they will continue to be a part of my own existence, but when I am gone, then a little more of them will also pass away.

That's how it works, isn't it? We live in memories, our own and the memories of others. Some of us will leave darker marks, more lasting traces; some of us not so very much. And yet, from my own perspective, that list seems a pretty significant gathering of talent: Here was a royal fellowship of death. I'm going to miss them.