The Death of John Lennon, 40 Years Later

Here and there yesterday, I heard and read about the 40th anniversary of the death of John Lennon.  But my memory of that event was a Dec. 9 memory.  I was in the 10th grade, and our house was a split foyer design.  My sister and I had bedrooms downstairs, and the den that had the TV was downstairs.  We had 1 TV--they were big and expensive back in those days.

I woke up to the sound of the TV, which I knew meant that something big had happened.  My mom usually listened to the radio as she moved through the day, and the TV was rarely on before an evening show that was suitable for the whole family.  We didn't have cable, so there wasn't much to choose from, not much reason to turn on the TV.

The last time my mom had left the kitchen upstairs to watch the morning news was when the rescue mission of the Iranian hostages had ended up wrecked in the desert sand back in the spring.  So on the morning of Dec. 9, 1980, I thought that something might have happened in that ongoing saga.

We weren't a family that listened to the Beatles.  My dad was a Simon and Garfunkle fan.  We listened to a wide variety of folk music (John Denver!  Gordon Lightfoot), along with jazz and classical.  My mom, a classically trained musician, said that my dad was the only one she ever dated who could discuss Handel's The Water Music.  There are flimsier elements that hold 2 people together.

I spent part of yesterday trying to remember if John Lennon is the first memory I have of a famous person being killed this way.  I have no memory of the shattering assassinations of the 1960's.  But I had learned about them, so the idea that someone famous could be cut down this way wasn't foreign to me.

I remember watching my mom watch the TV.  I remember seeing the crowds who had been gathering overnight in a mass grieving experience that has now become all too common after so many decades of violence.  But then, it was new to me.  I remember wondering if I would ever feel that way about the death of a musician.  What artist would be that important to me?

I've come to realize that I'm not one to look for communal grieving experiences.  I'm now old enough that I've experienced the death of many artists who have been important to me.  But I'd much rather reread the words that touched me or listen to the music by myself, where I can write about it and ponder more deeply--and cry in private.

One of the artists who has been deeply important to me is Paul Simon, and his song about the death of John Lennon is one that I love.  I've spent part of the 40th anniversary of the death of John Lennon listening to its haunting sound.