Elizabeth. My Elizabeth. Dead today @ 79. I took you for granted, I admit it. Thought you would always be there, live forever. I had always hoped to meet you and tell you that I had been named after you, and I had named my own daughter after you. You were one tough broad and I couldn’t have loved you more if I had tried. You were my hero and role model on how to live. No fear. No excuses. And certainly no apologies. I admire anyone for being able to live that way. At 48, I’m still trying to get out of my own way. You were one of the world’s most beautiful people, inside and out. One of the world’s finest actresses, glamorous, beauty without compare, and those eyes, those violet eyes that I’m sure once they fixed their gaze on a man he was toast. Who could ever have resisted you? I certainly never could, never wanted to. You had me all of my life transfixed by your beauty and words, your humanitarianism, your stiff upper lip, your Fuck You Up Yours I’ll Do What I Want attitude – what a Dame!
And man did you know how to live – and love. Your fire and passion for life were epic. You lived life for all it was worth and never gave up. You should have died many times over over the years, but you had the resolve to beat back anything that came your way and tried to kill you. But none of us in the end can withstand the rigors of Father Time, that ever marching, albeit non-existent, THING that gets us all, no matter how tough. We become frail, weak, cease to be efficient in our bodies or minds, and maybe some of us cease to be necessary or even relevant to life anymore. But not you. You will forever carry on, in our hearts and minds, on the silver screen, out into space to the stars beyond, your place safe and secure in history. It was a life well lived, judging from here on the sidelines. It wasn’t always great, you had your share of tragedies to be sure, but like us all, we have no choice but to go on. The difference for each of us is HOW we go on, how we REACT to what happens to us. And what I learned from you is that no matter what happens, in the end, it really ain’t all that big a deal. You roll with it, go with the flow. And that, my love, you did like no other. I will miss you my Queen Elizabeth, my Cleopatra. You were royalty and no other will ever be seen again like you. A diamond in the rough.
I don’t know what heaven is like, I believe it to be different for all of us, whatever we want it or imagine it to be. I hope your heaven has Richard and Michael in it, your mother, maybe Mike Todd too. I just hope my heaven has you. That would be a very big heaven indeed. Goodbye my violet-eyed goddess – goodbye.
