Random Thoughts
What Was So Magical About Betty White?
Maybe it was us.
I never met Betty White. I saw her in the few episodes of the Mary Tyler Moore Show that I watched and in the Golden Girls. I saw her cold open for SNL. That’s it.
I heard she was funny. A few of her posts have crossed my feed. The thing is, I was truly rooting for her to get 100. This person I didn’t know managed to take up enough of the headspace that I wished for her to attain a thing she wanted.
Does that mean I loved her? No. It means that on some level, I connected to her story as a human being. I was mildly disappointed that she didn’t reach 100, but, more than that, I was touched by how many other people were disappointed as well.
The collective feeling she evoked at the end of her life amazes me. My feed filled up with messages about her life and her death. People posted things she said and some things she never said, but that sounded like things might have said.
A quick scroll through her Twitter feed will tell you that she cared about animals — a lot. Maybe that is why so many people connected with her.
She seemed like a kind person who cared about people as well. By now, no doubt, you’ve read about how she stood up to racists and featured Arthur Duncan on the Betty White Show. What you may not know is that Duncan went on to join the cast of the Lawrence Welk show and credits White with his success. He is still dancing today.
I have no idea if the private, more human, life of Betty White was a mirror of her public one, and I don’t care. That is between her and the people who were close to her. Even if she didn’t say all the witty things that people attribute to her, that, also, is of little consequence.
The magic of Betty White wasn’t her long life. It certainly wasn’t her ability to make such a long and illustrious career in Hollywood. I think the real magic of Betty White is that she created a space for people to come together and celebrate and mourn with each other and to revel in the possibility of having a life truly well lived.
I treasure every minute we spend together, embracing the idea that our lives really can make a difference and that, even if only for a short time, we all loved Betty White.
Maybe, like Herbie J Pilato says,
