Farewell to Lauren Bacall

I think this is how most people will remember her.  Her haughty, insolent beauty and gravel voice had a unique presence and authority and also exhibited a keen intelligence and fortitude that served her very well throughout her life.  She enjoyed success, passionate romances and marriages, and a rather nice long life.  That also makes her a very lucky lady.  My favorite movie of her is still "How to Marry a Millionaire," because I think her character Schatze was in many ways similar to her own character in real life.  I think she was a brainy, strong, passionate and determined beauty who commanded respect and always got what she wanted.  Have a good journey Lauren.  I saw you in person in Applause and you were terrific.

HOMAGE TO A FALLEN HERO

After having been previously captured and held for six weeks in Libya, he knew, oh so well, the risks he was taking, yet his love of journalism was such, it compelled him to go back to the most dangerous places in the world, and this time it was Syria.  And after the horrible images posted everywhere by the monsters who assassinated him,we all know what his tragic fate ultimately was.  We know how he was singled out and for special torment daily for two years.  His courage and determination to stay true to himself, his faith in God and prayer brought out the sadism in his captors and they took turns torturing him.  This time he had encountered true evil and he lived with that knowledge every second of those last two years.  Did he regret his choices?  Did he wish daily for the nightmare to end?  Or knowing that regrets and lamentations were a waste of time and energy, did he retreat into a hidden corner of his soul that was left untouched by physical and emotional pain?  I think he did.  I think we saw that in that horrific video.  We saw a man unafraid, unbroken and ready to die.  This is his victory over evil and this is the lesson for all of us.  Let's not be haunted by what happened to him, let's learn from it as we encounter the storms and trials of our lives.

THE DAY THE LAUGHTER DIED - A SHOCKING ENDING TO A FABULOUS LIFE

Beyond the accolades, material compensations, adulation and recognition of his undeniable comedic genius, this was a man who suffered.  His tragic ending brings to mind the following poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

"Whenever Richard Cory went downtown,
We people on the pavement looked at him,
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked,
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good Morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich - yes richer than a king -
And admirably schooled in every grace;
In fine we thought he was everything
To make us wish we were in his place

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night
Went home and put a bullet through his head.