Bea Arthur.
To some, she was the old, deep-voiced lady on "The Golden Girls." The show, of course, being in many peoples' eyes as the precursor to "Sex and the City."
To others, well, she was the old, deep-voiced lady on "The Golden Girls."
Held in high regard, Bea was a TV, film and stage star. To me, she meant a lot more than that.
Her passing has left an absence in my life. Routinely, I catch reruns of the show on TV and joyously watch. Other times, when I feel up to it, I will pull out one of the seasons on DVD and pop it into my PS2 and watch a few episodes.
You see, Dorothy, Sophia, Rose and Blanche meant more to me than just four fictional characters.
The acerbic, witty Dorothy. The acid-tongue Sophia. The promiscuous Blanche and naïve Rose were all apart of how I came to be.
Each summer until I was about 14, I would spend parts of the season at my grandparents' cabin on Mille Lacs Lake. Fishing, golf-cart driving and Paul Bunyan Land were usual activities. But one, nightly, involved a bowl of vanilla ice cream and an hour of watching "The Golden Girls." During the rest of the year, we would nestle in our favorite chairs in her suburban Minneapolis condo.
The show, as polished as they come, was a bonding point for my grandmother and me. She and I got along swimmingly. She truly was one of my best friends. When, as a youth, I lived without direction from my parents, she was always available to help guide me through troubled waters that I frequented all too often. This continued until her death in October.
Bea's passing brings back the struggles of the last six months. You see, on top of history lessons and random trivia, the swimming, the stories and gin rummy and other card games, my grandmother taught me a lot about living and being an ethical person. "The Golden Girls" often jump-started many a conversation about how to act and treat people. The biting dialogue helped me develop my humor. As a youth, I learned to respectfully treat the elderly because of this show. It taught me not to discriminate (to a certain extent) based on one's appearance. Still today, people scoff at the notion I enjoy such a show because it's just "four old ladies." Get real.
The show means so much more to me than just a sitcom, and with each passing of a cast member -- Estelle Getty, who played Sophia, had already passed -- it brings back the reality that my friend is no longer near.
But, with a bowl of vanilla ice cream in hand, I can look at pictures of past, play a DVD of our show, and think of simpler and jovial times before I had responsibility and she had to leave me.
