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Our dear friend Rona Jaffe died today
As I've often said, I speak to the dearly departed on a daily basis yet I am as angry as I am anxious about death - I think it is a serious desgin flaw in human beings and I look forward to the day when genetic scientists stop worrying about fame and grant money long enough to figure out how to turn on the longevity gene that I believe we all have as a legacy of our creation as pro-creating human beings by the brilliant genetic engineering of the Annunaki sceintists Enki, whose symbol has always been the twin snakes (the DNA molecule's symbol) of the Caduceus and his sister Ninharsag (read the scientific carefully documented and reasoned work of Zecharia Sitchin or some of my previous blogs if what I just wrote sounds psychotic - the truth is stranger than fiction and especially the truth about our creation. Suffice it to say that both the Darwinians and the Intelligent Designers are correct!)
But I digress. I deny. I deny the fact that I am devastated that Rona Jaffe is gone. What a wonderful woman! Brilliant and funny and strong and sarcastic and the epitome of everything that is good about New York City's fashionable Upper East Side if you are a single girl, for even though she died at 73 Rona was younger than almost anyone that I know. She was indomitable and even though she's easy to speak with in the spirit world, life is not going to be the same for Amy and me and a lot of other people, too.
Rona was so much fun to be with, the quintiessential New York writer who could have been a gossip columnist had she not been the soul of discretion. She took with her to the grave the juiciest of secrets on a whole regiment of famous celebrities that she knew. An example: Rona dated legendary comic Lenny Bruce! She knew EVERYONE! But she would never write the book that everyone wanted to read, the one about her personal experiences with the rich, the famous, and the interesting of all walks of life because, way deep down, she loved people and knew how hurt they'd be if she betrayed their secrets.
And Rona knew this because she was so often hurt by people who should have known better. Amy and I love her and will always love her. I don't think we told her this but she helped us miss less Amy's dear mother, Jessie Spicer Zerner. They were both Gemini geniuses - Rona's well-written novels sold over 35,000,000 copies and started the whole "chick lit" movement with the runaway best seller, "The Best of Everything," and Jessie was a pen & ink master artist who graduated from Pratt Institute in one year! - and older women to whom we could turn to make some sense (or not) out of this crazy world.
One of the craziest experiences I ever had was with Rona Jaffe, literally, an experience with a crazy person. But he was a high functioning crazy person. We gave Rona a ride out to East Hampton from New York City with a stop at the Honda dealership in Riverhead, NY. Her salesman seemed like a nice guy and the test drive went smoothly, if you don't count him taking the wheel and banging into another new car!
But when we came back to his desk to do the paperwork and he asked me what I did for a living, Rona piped up that I was a metaphysical expert and author and the car salesman was off to the races. He explained to us that he was working with the CIA to develop computers that were powered by people's brains. And that when they wanted to contact him, they put sales order forms on his desk whose numbers were an algorythm of a number that only he knew. And that he was able to obtain information from the rain and often walked in it naked for just that purpose (my Origin of Humanity opening of this blog is starting to sound pretty pedestrian, no?)
Rona was totally unfazed and kept bringing him back to reality or our reality anyway with questions like "But are you sure it has leather seats?" and I didn't know whether to laugh at her on-message abilities or cry for this obviously very sick man who had somehow gotten himself through the hiring process - must have been a relative! (That's something Rona would have said!)
There was more to that story and infinitely more to Rona. No one could tell a story like her - her insights into human nature were an education.
Oh, Rona, I'm shreiking inside, wailing like an Arabic woman in mourning. What am I going to do without your towering presence in your diminuitive body that you kept in such great shape with Pilates and eating so precisely? I wish everyone could have known you but then again they can through your books and through the recently released DVD of "The Best of Everything" movie, which starred Joan Crawford. Rona's voice is the commentary track. She told us "Everyone else is dead so I'm the only one left who they can get to do the commentary track." She was a pip!
When you mourn, mourn. Don't hold back the tears or the emotions or it will make you sick. You're going to feel like you weren't good enough to the person who's gone but that is natural, unless you really weren't good enough to them. In that case, you won't even care or notice (was that me, or Rona Jaffe writing? Sure sounds like Rona! ;-)
Sigh. If Rona was here in body as well as spirit and was asked to comment on her untimely death (74 is young these days, especially for someone so health conscious), she'd most likely give voice to one of the funniest things I heard her say spontaneously many years ago: "I'm too old and too rich to have to put up with this!"
Goodbye Rona, we'll always love you and never forget you and maybe we'll see you again some time and some place - we sure hope so!
Heres a link to Rona Jaffe's obituary on the New York Times website. |
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