The first person in my life to die was Uncle Burr. I don't even remember how old I was, but young enough that Mom decided it would be for the best if I didn't attend the funeral. Everyone else did, though--on that day I came home from school to a plate full of brownies, a new comic book and a note from Mom. I may not have grasped the concept of death, but hey--brownies!
The thing is, I don't remember Uncle Burr. I remember that he existed, I remember that he and Auntie Alice would come to visit once in awhile, and they'd stay in Grandma's trailer, right across the driveway from our house, but there's a hole where the actual man should be. My memories of him are like a bad, smudgy carbon copy--a memory of a memory.
Even my Dad, who died twenty-one years ago, is no longer as active a presence in my mind as he should be. I recall his blue chambray shirts, his fondness for Grain Belt and the sound of his voice, but I have to work a little harder to remember what he was actually like, to remember him doing or saying something specific. Dad, my brother Keith, even Mom, in whose memory I started this site--yeah, they're there, but not all the time.
On the other hand, Walter Becker and Tom Petty, guys I never met, never had a chance of meeting--they won't ever leave my memory.
Partly it's the music, of course--there's always a Steely Dan or Petty tune playing in my head. But I only saw The Dan live one time, and Becker's hilarious, rambling patter ("I'd like to invite you all--figuratively, not literally--back to my hotel room for a drink"), his old-man sweat pants and countless dazzling guitar solos will stay with me, even as I forget memories I shared with actual family and friends.
And Tom Petty, well, I mean: Damn The Torpedoes dropped like a big-ass bomb just as I was entering high school, and its string of perfect singles--Refugee, Don't Do Me Like That, Here Comes My Girl--tracked one of the most difficult periods of my life, and the depression I spiraled into for most of the eighties was made largely bearable by Hard Promises, Long After Dark and Southern Accents.
Our cultural heroes become a part of us, whether we're telling their jokes, singing their lyrics or watching their movies. They matter, and when they die, it's natural to grieve--if not for the actual person, then for what they brought to our lives, and what they can never bring again. Or to put it another way: I loved my mom, but she didn't write American Girl.
