The Peculiarities of Grief

 As we get older and we see the people who entertained us start to pass on, it's only natural to feel some sadness. Some deaths affect us more than others, and I think it's because of how that artist touched our lives. Art is powerful, and evokes considerable emotions within us. Art is a way for us to connect, to feel, to experience.

And so I was rather astonished that I took the passing of Val Kilmer as hard as I did. In the few weeks since his passing, I've cried, read tributes to him from others in the entertainment business, watched some of his movies again, and scrolled through tons of pictures from early in his career to later. A few years ago, I watched his documentary, Val, and saw what a eccentric genius he was, so full of life and spirit and that creative spark only a few in this world truly have. To see him still create and be so vibrant despite his health challenges made me just admire him all the more. I don't know that I can watch it again because I'll be a sobbing mess.

But I've had to ask myself: why am I experiencing such grief over his passing? 

I think it's a few things.

One, I grew up with Val Kilmer movies - Willow, Top Gun, etc. He was part of my life, just as Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Tom Hanks, and so many more were, and losing him (and Carrie Fisher, Prince, and others who entertained me and fellow GenXers) means I've lost some of my childhood. And it is a loss, even if I never met any of them. So it's only natural to grieve. It also makes us confront our own mortality. I will be 50 years old in two months, which means half of my life is over. It's sobering and frankly, a little terrifying.

But the second reason I'm mourning is because I totally fell in love with Val Kilmer's character Simon Templar in The Saint. 

I was a senior in college when The Saint came out in 1997. I remember a guy asking me on a date to go see it at the movie theater downtown. From the moment it started, I was completely captivated. This movie had everything, absolutely everything, that I love: an international setting, romance, unscrupulous villains, a complicated hero, espionage, a smattering of comedy, and a happy ending. 

But Simon Templar...oh Simon Templar was the man I wanted to fall in love with, the man I wanted to take me on fantastic adventures away from my small Nebraska college town, the man who was the perfect hero, the perfect lover - everything all rolled into one.

And when I was in college, I desperately wanted a man to fill the gaping void in my soul. Because I had a distant father growing up (though our relationship has since healed) who did not show me affection or tell me he loved me, I turned to romance novels and romance movies to escape, and in real life, I was certifiably boy crazy. Any boy who showed me attention instantly hooked me, and as a result, I ended up with some terrible men and had my heart broken more than once. I wanted my real life hero, and I wanted my happily ever after, and I drove myself into a terrible 18 year abusive marriage trying to find it. (Only now, after a painful divorce, therapy, and years of healing, do I realize I do not need a man to complete me).

So when I saw Val Kilmer bring Simon Templar, my perfect fantasy man, to life onscreen, you bet I fell for Val Kilmer. Hard.  When the movie ended, I was on such a natural high that I walked out of that theater feeling like I was on a cloud. I remember going to the bar afterwards and telling anyone and everyone who would listen how incredible the movie was and to go see it immediately. I bought both the soundtracks on CD (I still have them) and bought the movie poster. 

It remains one of my favorite movies of all time. Some people think it's corny, but I don't care.  

Kilmer's passing triggered something in me - maybe I am grieving for that woman who, after watching that film, was more determined than ever to go to Europe and find adventure and romance, to get out of Nebraska and see the world, and I failed. I ended up staying in Nebraska for the next 27 years. I had so many dreams - and because of bad choices and bad decisions, they were put on hold. 

I think it's all sort of intertwined. Grief at how things just didn't go to plan for that vibrant, excited young woman; grief at losing such a pivotal figure of my childhood; grief at facing my own mortality.

I feel sort of ridiculous crying over someone I never met, but grief doesn't necessarily make sense, and so I'm allowing myself to grieve. I'm rewatching many of Val Kilmer's films that I haven't seen in years, or watching ones I've never seen before, and I ordered his autobiography because I want to know more about who he was. Though there are stories of him being difficult to work with, there are many more stories of his generosity and kindness, of his brilliant eccentricities, of his friendship, of him loving his children and being a wonderful father. He wasn't perfect - none of us are - but in Hollywood, there aren't many celebrities who don't have some kind of scandal attached to them. Val seems to be one of the rare ones who made his art one of his top priorities.  

So yes. I will miss him. I'm so glad, though, that he will remain immortal through his films.