Requiem

posted by The Vidiot @ 8:31 PM Permalink

No matter how old you are, when both your parents are gone, you feel like an orphan.

My Mom died much too soon, and it's been a while since my Dad passed. They've been gone for years, and I thought I was pretty well used to it.

Then I saw Liza Minelli on the Actors Studio show on Bravo. I wasn't watching it, I just caught it while channel surfing. I rode the tube in at the moment she was singing a song from Rose. It was the Sondheim tune "Wherever we go, whatever we do, we're going to go thru it together"

My Dad sang that song to me when I was a little nipper. He adjusted the chorus for him and me: 'wherever Daddy goes Bonson goes'

I hadn't thought about that since ... well, since the 5th of never.

Watching people honor your parents is a poor substitute for having them.
Coretta Scott King's service brought this in sharp focus.

Some wrongwingers decried the 'politicization' of a funeral service while shedding crocodile tears and calling for 'Decorum, people, Decorum.'

My Dad, and I suspect the Dr. and Mrs. King, were more concerned about obscenity than decorum. The obscenity of siccing dogs on humans. The obscenity of an illegal war. The obscenity of dead and disfigured Americans sacrificed for a lie. The obscenity of spying on Americans and 'leaking' to the press the results of the spying. The obscenity of cutting social programs to fund an illegal war ... ad nauseam.

It was a beautiful service, a fine tribute to her life. But at the end of the day, we are still orphans.

I sure wish my Dad had been here to see it.