I like to imagine that there's a boundary that the living among us can't see, a dividing line between Here and There; when people leave Here, they walk across the line with the others and keep on living. I like to think that they are still singing and acting across the line--recognizing each other, their contemporaries in death, maybe forming a brand new band or writing some new songs for the people who've crossed over the line ahead of them.
When I heard about Shirley Temple Black's death, I didn't think of the child star she was (that was before my time); I thought about the Shirley Temple doll I got one Christmas, still in Carlene's doll cabinet. We all got Shirley Temple dolls; she was a star when our mothers were little girls.
The second thing I thought about was Daisy, my baby girl, born in 1971. A precocious talker at two, she would sit on the floor in bookstores, carefully turning the pages of books. "Is this book appropriate for my age?" she asked.
"Did that baby say what I think she said?" asked a clerk.
Everywhere we went, her hair a mass of bright curls, people would bend down and ask her, "Do you know who you look just like?"
"Shirley Temple," she'd say (sounding very bored). She had no idea who Shirley Temple was, but she'd heard it so many times she knew the answer.
This is one of my favorite photos of Day--in the arms of Granddaddy Lloyd. As you can tell, he adored her--and she him.
When Day's baby brother was in the hospital during his second and third week of life, Day (then almost seven) and I would walk across the park to Mi Tierra's for lunch.
Her favorite drink was a Shirley Temple: ginger ale in an icy glass with grenadine syrup and one maraschino cherry.
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