Rant #2,810: My Way

Today is January 11, the lucky 11th day of the year.
 
Why is the number 11 lucky, as in 7-11?
 
I don’t know, but it is one of those things that just IS.
 
But it was a date that Sidney Poitier, Betty White and Bob Saget didn’t get to this year.

Although nothing new has come out about Poitier's passing, I have read some new details of the time leading up to the deaths of White and Saget, and its is just so sad to read.

 
White, who seemed to be charging ahead to her 100th birthday, suffered a stroke just a few days before she died.
 
And now we are learning that Saget just pretty much expired after doing a robust stand-up comedy show, meaning preliminary autopsy reports show no drug use and no foul play.
 
At least the early results show that he just died of natural causes.
 
Of course, when you hear that a Hollywood star has died, you automatically think that some nefarious reason led to their deaths, but in White and Saget’s cases at least--and evidently in Poitier's case--they died like us non-Hollywood types often die, so there is nothing bombastic to report about their deaths other than they died like human beings die.
 
I mean, other than being famous, they put on their pants the same way we do, so why shouldn’t they perish the way ordinary average Joes do?
 
Then we have the earlier death of Michael Nesmith, which was brought on by several factors that kind of have one foot into the “normal” way to perish and another foot—or feet—into the Hollywood way to die.
 
He had had major heart problems during his last years, and mix that with being a staunch Christian Scientist and even a stauncher pot user—not the medical kind—and you get someone who was resigned to the fact that he was dying, and simply wanted to make the most of whatever time he had left.
 
His family warned against the constant puffing, his doctors tried to help him but his life-long Christian Scientist beliefs frowned upon traditional medicine, and really, there was nothing much one could do when Nesmith made up his mind that he was done.
 
I have read some accounts of his last weeks and months, and he literally bathed himself in a haze of marijuana. Maybe it made him feel better, but it ended up consuming him, if you want to believe the reports I have read.
 
It got to the point where Nesmith would not speak to anyone unless he tried to engage them in smoking with him. If they declined, he backed off, but the offer was always on the table.
 
Whatever the case, it is just so sad that these personalities are gone way before their time, and that includes White, everyone’s favorite saucy grandma, who you just thought would conquer 100 years of life and never leave us.
 
Sure, that is kind of an outlandish way to look at it, but everyone was shocked when she passed away, even though she had lived 99-plus years.
 
Saget is another case, evidently a guy whose time may have just come.
 
And being that he was 65 years old … well, at least for me, that is just too close to my own 64-plus years, so how much time is enough?
 
As for Nesmith, seeing him on the last Monkees tour, I would say that we were pretty much all prepared for this demise, so when he passed late last year, I was what you would call upset, but I certainly wasn’t surprised.
 
He just looked so frail and out of it during the show that my son and I saw, that you knew that his own will was getting him through the last of these shows.
 
But the silver lining with these deaths—if there ever can be a silver lining in such things—is that Poitier, White, Saget and Nesmith went out doing what they wanted to do.
 
Poitier continued his commanding presence that he had as a true Hollywood icon for the past 60 or so years, Saget was doing standup, Nesmith was doing the concerts, and White was preparing for her 100th birthday, a party that we would all be invited to.
 
They all went out in something of a final blaze of glory, and really, that is all one can ask, isn’t it?
 
They all left us doing what they loved to do, and they were all as active as possible in their final days.
 
One can’t really ask for more.

Even us regular people can do the same thing, being as active as possible in their final days.
 
My father had a poor last month of life when he left us going on two years ago, but in the months prior to his passing, while he was not 100 percent, he still did the things he loved to do: read the newspaper from cover to cover, enjoy his family, and yes, drive his car.
 
In fact, he drove up until literally about a month before he passed away on Labor Day in 2020. I was in the car with him, and he drove like the professional driver he had been for more than 50 years, and he believed that if it was necessary, he could go back to driving a cab once again.
 
He never had to do that, but I know that in his mind, he truly believed that he still had it in him to do it if necessary.
 
And I believed him, I really did.
 
That is the common ground of Poitier, White, Saget, Nesmith and yes, my father too.
 
They all continued to go about their business until the end, and while we all mourn their passings, they all lived life to the fullest, and went out that way too.
 
One really can’t ask for more.