First David Bowie. Then Alan Rickman. This week and cancer both suck. Sixty-nine years is not enough, so we all take to Twitter, Facebook, and countless other platforms to lament. This is now familiar territory and not in a good way.
My first memory of this kind of grief was watching my nana’s reaction to the death of Jimmy Durante back in 1980. I barely knew who he was, but he had clearly made a lasting impression on her and his passing hurt. Since then, I’ve had my share of Durante moments – Michael Jackson, Robin Williams, Diana, Freddie Mercury, Whitney Houston, Gilda Radner, Luther Vandross, and John Lennon, to name a few – those special, mind-blowingly talented souls I never met whose loss still felt personal, the grief only compounded if they were unexpectedly young. Whenever one of these icons passes, we all feel robbed of a piece of our youth, fond memories, and future smiles.
I don’t want one more morning of waking to a gut-punch on Twitter followed by frantically googling to see if by some miracle it’s just a false alarm, so I’ve decided to make a not-allowed-to-die list. Because I’m as self-centered as everyone else on this planet (well, maybe not 48-minutes-a-day-taking-selfies level narcissistic, but I’m no slouch either), here’s my list (in no particular order) of those I’m requesting to kindly stay alive indefinitely:
- Steve Martin
- Paul McCartney
- Oprah
- Bill Gates
- Billie Jean King
- Bruce Springsteen
- President & Mrs. Obama
- Tina Fey
- Tom Hanks
- Stevie Wonder
- Steven Spielberg
- Steven Tyler
- Stephen Colbert
- Betty White
- Elizabeth Gilbert
- Eddie Izzard
- Edward Rutherfurd
- Barbara Streisand
- Jon Stewart
- John Goodman
- Lisa See
- Mick Jagger
- Ben Stiller
- Pharrell
- Helen Mirren
- Joe & Dr. Biden
- Meryl Streep
- Bill Nye
- Madonna
- Dikembe Mutombo
- Ellen DeGeneres
- David Sedaris
- Pope Francis
- Emma Thompson
- Sarah Vowell
- Monty Python members (thank you, Eric Idle and John Cleese, for coming to Florida about five minutes after I moved here)
- Martina Navratilova
- Al Jarreau
- Cheryl Richardson
- Jimmy Carter
- Judd Apatow
- Rachel Maddow
- Tony Horwitz
- Amy Poehler
- Ken Burns
- Pat Ewing
- Bill Clinton
- Melissa McCarthy
- Gloria Steinem
- Bill Murray
I realize there’s a bit of an age bias built in here, but I decided to include 40-somethings as doing so means that they’ve already left as much of a mark as their senior mega-talents, and yet, I drew the line at under-40 (I’m talking to you, Beyoncé, Amy Schumer, John Green, Pink, Serena Williams, Kate McKinnon, and Saoirse Ronan) to avoid coming across as even creepier than this probably already seems to some.
To those on the list, I’d be grateful if you could set an alert for my obituary. Once you receive it, you’re welcome to pass over to the great wild yonder, but before then, would you mind staying alive?
What? You’ve never heard of this silly list, and even if you had, wouldn’t have time for such nonsense? Well, maybe I should take another approach then.
What if I make it a point to travel a few hundred miles or even catch a flight to see you in concert rather than wait to download your music after the fact? What if I watch your latest TV show to see what you’ve been up to lately instead of turning to Roku once you’ve passed? What if I read that book I never got around to now instead of when it hurts to realize that I’ll never get another first-time escape into your magical storytelling voice again? What if I make a minor contribution to your wealth instead of to your estate? What if I use my #NotAllowedToDie list to support these gifted individuals here and now?
Photo Credit: Steve Corey
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