Once and Future Queen

I keep having to remind myself that she is gone. But then things like this gorgeous Vanity Fair bring me back to the harsh reality. It seems so cosmically cruel, really. Her loss continues to send mournful echoes across the galaxies. I have been lucky enough in my career to have been able to interview many of the women who were my childhood heroines. Megan Shirley/Anne of Green Gables. Linda Carter/Wonder Woman. But Carrie Fisher/Princess Leia, alas, she will forever be among the stars. Close enough to see burn brightly until the end of time, but never close enough to reach out and touch. I held off watching this video tribute to her for more than a month. Until just last night, honestly. Maybe I was hoping if I waited I could still have just a little longer with her. If you haven’t watched “Bright Lights,” the documentary about Carrie and her mother Debbie Reynolds, for the same reason I implore you to stop waiting. As melancholy as it is, and it’s a loss beyond words, the vitality of their lives should make us all feel a little better about the universe. We all start as stardust, after all. The lucky ones, they get to live among the stars shining benevolently down at us forever.