Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Lauren Bacall -- A testament to perseverance

Her name was Betty Joan Perske.  I thought, because of the antiSemitism of the day this Jewish woman changed her name to Lauren Bacall but no.  While her first name Lauren may seem a bit anglicized Bacall was not.  It was her mother's maiden name dropping the name of her father who left her mother and her at a very young age.

We lost two greats this week, one before his time (whatever that time was) and one of natural causes at 89.  Lauren Bacall is a testament to perseverance losing the love of her life to cancer at a very young age.  She persevered and married again even having another child. 

Bacall worked well into her senior years significantly through an actress's looskist fear when the beauty of youth fades and the mirror of career death stares one in their face.  Bacall, though, kept on going. 

Williams and Bacall are testaments to two different reactions to the vicissitudes of life.  We can give up when treatment does not work and end our suffering or we can persevere through it taking one more breath each day grateful that we won the lottery of life by simply being born. 

Both were giants of American culture and I will miss them as I miss all who contribute and advance so much good in a world filled with so much observable anger, discord, violence and hate.  They are a welcome calm, if just for a moment, through the storm of life.

NOT ANYMORE

  I wrote this last week and for the most part sat on it because I did not want my writing to imply anything against Israel. As stated agai...