Saturday, November 09, 2013

Billy Crystal


I saw Billy Crystal on Broadway Wednesday evening.  I knew my dad would have hated for me to waste the tickets and not go.  It would have hurt him to see $324 go in the trash.

The show was funny and sad.  It did exactly what it was supposed to do.  I know exactly how he felt when he said after his father died he went through life pushing a giant boulder in front of him.  I have rocks around my neck.  Oh, and his mom's passing, her stroke, was my dad's tumor.

I'm glad I went.  I wish I could reach out and thank him for the way he made me feel.

(Pictured is dad and his mom.  Photo chosen in honor of his service in WW II)

3 comments:

burntoutteacher said...

Art is transformative. It helps us cope, helps us envision a better world, helps us put our lives into perspective. Please contact Billy Crystal. I am sure that he would appreciate your appreciation. (He is on twitter, by the way.)

reality-based educator said...

My aunt, who become very much my second mother after my own mother died when I was 17, died last year after a short illness. She had had cancer for over 8 years, different cancers, always had survived, so I guess I never thought the last one would kill her. But it did - and very, very fast.

I have had a difficult year over it. It's only recently that I realize how much this has affected me. It put my own mortality in perspective for me. It's made me think more about the eternal and the universal, less about the ephemeral stuff. And I carry around a sadness that I can only describe as something that just "is".

My aunt will be dead a year next month. My mother is dead 29 years. I am 46. Hard to believe all three of those things. But I guess it's just life. Mia Farrow wrote somewhere that she has discovered that life is learning how to lose people and things gracefully - that in the end, that's kind of what it turns out to be. That statement resonated with me - even if I'm still working on the "graceful" part.

Anonymous said...


Bill Crystal has been known to do book signings and meeting fans on occasion..and in NY too.. he recently just did a book signing in Huntington over a month ago. He is very people friendly and funny.

(I have a DVR recording set to his name..because I have a crush on him).


Trace