RIP Carrie Fisher

Dallas Comic Con, May 2015.  We were there early, she was running late, on Princess Time, Rob said.  We sat in line for an hour and a half until we heard she wasn't going to be there until 12:30. We gave up to go do other things.  The line manager told us to take our ticket with us and come back later.  We checked back at 2 and there were a gazillion people in line so we left and checked back at 3 and there were still a gazillion people in line.  We figured that it just wasn't going to happen and we were going to leave without seeing her. We were only in town for one day. However,  with a lot of help from Jennifer Dunham and line manager Babs, we were able to get her autograph. 

 I told Carrie that when Star Wars came out I was nine and Rob was eleven and that we'd spent all our allowance money every Saturday going back to see it again all summer long.  She asked us if we met in line.  I told her, no, we were in different towns, but that we'd met in high school.  She thought that was just darling and signed our poster, "Carrie Fisher, from the Cantina bar".  She had her dog Gary Fisher with her at the table in his own chair and all his snacks laid out on the table.  Yes, his tongue hangs out like that all the time.

A lot of famous people have died this year. A lot of them are represented on my Deaths that Pissed Me Off page.  The fact that I even felt the need to make this page shows you just how relentless 2016 has been and continues to be.  Not just actual deaths, but Bernie's hopes for the nomination, HIllary's hopes for the Presidency, and Liberal Democrats hopes for a future that doesn't include handing the nuclear codes to a man unfit to run an ice cream truck, much less the country.  

I can't even begin to explain to you how much I loved Princess Leia and therefore Carrie FIsher.  She was a role model, a hero, someone I wanted to be when I grew up.  Only as an adult did I start to see her as a person and not just the character she played.  After Postcards from the Edge I figured out she was an author and that was her story.  I didn't read the book until years after I'd seen the movie, not until I found out she'd be in Dallas and I could meet her.  I always felt that I had a lot in common with her in terms of our relationships with our mothers.  I had to read the book to find out that none of that is in the book, just in the movie.  I wondered if she had anything to do with the screenplay.  I read the book before meeting her and wanted to read more of her stuff afterwards, but life will get in the way.  My mother's dementia got worse, she had a knee replacement.  We went out to Washington to help move her from the rehab hospital back to her condo.  It turned out not to really matter.  She was just as happy at the nursing home, she didn't really do any rehab, and eventually she took to bed and never really got out again.  I had met Princess Leia and my mom was too far gone to care.

This year sucks.  It has been the worst year of my life so far and that's saying a lot.  So many people were hoping and praying that 2016 wouldn't take her after her heart attack four days ago.  So many people loved her.  She was such a bright light in this dark period of American history and I fear things will only get worse.  I can't believe she's gone.