All Things Must Pass; or, Thanks for the Awesome Part II

Ten years ago tomorrow morning, my clock radio made me very sad.* It wasn't the sort of news that was SUPPOSED to make you bawl. Just a few months before, there'd been a great big terrorist attack, and I'd wondered vaguely if there was something wrong with me, that I hadn't cowered in fear and spoken in hushed tones about how my life would never be the same, as everyone else seemed to be doing; now here I was, weepy and giddy and unable to concentrate, because one man, a man I had never met and was never likely to meet, had died relatively peacefully of cancer the afternoon before. Silliness, right? this obsession people have with celebrities, as if their comings and goings matter to the rest of us. What's another dead rock star?

Except he wasn't just a celebrity. He was the man who had written my favorite song, the most perfect three minutes and five seconds in the history of popular music, the song I always played whenever I was feeling sad, that never failed to make me feel at least just a bit better. The man who'd made me crack up with just the phrase "apart from the bit about the monkey..." in a documentary a few years before, which I somehow remained convinced was the funniest thing anyone had ever said for years and years (I may be over it now. Maybe). The man I'd made up a fictional superhero nephew for once at a sleepover who became my favorite character EVER**, the man who therefore had earned the affectionate title of "Uncle George" in my mind. The man I'd written an earnest, heartfelt fan letter to, thanking him for his contributions to my life... a letter that was still sitting in a box across the room, unsent.

That unsent letter haunted me. As if he needed another fan letter. As if one can get through life having been the lead guitarist of the greatest rock band of all time without getting enough fan mail to require a committee to sort through. Still, he'd profoundly affected my life without knowing it, and I'd NEVER GOTTEN TO SAY THANK YOU.

Interesting side note: today is also Madeleine L'Engle's birthday. Today is both the anniversary of the birth of the woman who wrote my favorite book AND the death of the man who wrote my favorite song. THIS IS COSMIC. What's even more interesting, I wrote a letter of thanks to Madeleine L'Engle the same time I wrote that letter to George Harrison, only I SENT hers, because it's so freaking easy to send letters to authors-- they go to the publisher. Publisher's addresses are always right out there. (Nowadays it's even easier than THAT to write to authors, because nearly everyone's got an online presense of SOME sort-- I'm not even SURE how many authors I've dropped notes to just this past year, just because it's so easy. Now I can say, "Wow, that was a good book... I SHOULD TELL THE AUTHOR!" and, BAM! DONE! But other sorts of celebrities, you haven't even GOT the write-to-the-publisher option. Do you KNOW how frustrated I got trying to find someplace to write to Martin Freeman earlier this year? I finally managed to track down the address of the producers of Sherlock, and now just must hope it somehow managed to get to him. Then like three months later, the Sherlockology fansite posted his agents' address. THANK YOU for the ill-timing, really! But my point is, this wouldn't be a problem if EVERYONE HAD A PUBLISHER. Publishers are handy that way). You'd think I could find SOME mailing address SOMEWHERE for SOME corporation that would be in direct contact with George Harrison, but I could not, so HIS letter just sat there in my stationery box, while Madeleine L'Engle's made it off safely to Farrar Strauss and Giroux and eventually into the hands of the-woman-I-was-to-name-my-daughter-after herself, who then even wrote BACK to me (which I will tell you all about sometime next year during my Year of the Tesseract celebrations)... and I stopped worrying about sending that other letter, because I'd successfully sent the letter going to the 83-year-old woman: WHO was likely to die first?

So since then, I've been a bit paranoid about saying Thank You. I am GLAD so many authors are reachable online, because it's so nice to be able to up and thank someone when they've unwittingly touched your life. And now I'm constantly poking myself to show gratitude to others (BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!), and a lot of that has to do with that one little letter I never sent.

And for all this, I'm STILL terrible at actual thank-you cards. If you are reading this and have ever given me a gift for which you did not receive a thank-you card, THANK YOU. I REALLY DID MEAN IT. I WAS PROBABLY DIZZY OR SOMETHING. (Speaking of which, thank you, katecoombs, the fantasy stamps came in the mail the other day! Although I don't suppose those were a gift as much as I won them fair and square, but thank you anyway!)

But, back on topic, I've made peace: I'm certain that somewhere "Uncle" George has gotten wind of everything I meant to tell him by this point-- if not in so many "That Amy girl sure loves 'Here Comes the Sun'" words, at least in a bit of the sunshine he's given me coming right back to him.

And for you, here's the verse that kept ringing in my head that weekend ten years ago-- different song, same theme:

The darkness only stays the night-time
In the morning it will fade away
Daylight is good at arriving at the right time
It's not always going to be this grey

All things must pass
All things must pass away.
--George Harrison, 1970.

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*(Not in the same way it made me very sad YESTERDAY morning, @beckiezra, if you're reading this. Different thing entirely.)
**It occurs to me that the majority of people actually reading this blog nowadays DON'T automatically know what I'm talking about when I make Billy 'Arrison references, and I should stop making them and maybe, like, concentrate on actually writing him a proper book again. SOMEDAY, I swear.