How Can it Be?

When The Patch began its blogging initiative last week, I sent the editor an email inquiring about participating.  She asked if I had any particular topic in mind and there were three that I had interest in.   Naturally, the one I most wanted to pursue was already being done by several other people. 

Yep, if you Google “a day late and a dollar short,” that’s my picture that comes up!  No, it’s not the one at the bottom of the entry that looks like the Facebook logo; although that is my favorite shade of blue.  It’s to the right of that icon.  It’s more of an image that reflects a cross between the beginning of the names Twitter and the Internet aggregating program StumbleUpon.

But now the pressure is on, the editor has just emailed me asking me if I need any assistance.  How could I even begin to think of blogging on a day of such national tragedy?  Everywhere I turn I am continually faced with images that break my heart.  The pain, the suffering and the loss; how can I be expected to be productive, when I, like the rest of the nation are reeling from such a shocking jolt?

Does this woman have any sense of propriety?  There are certain days when we have to put our own lives aside and grieve for others.  That’s what makes us individually human; and the shared grief is the glue that has held this great country together through similar tragedies.

I was only a child when Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton split-up the first time, yet from all the stories and black-and-white photos and video clips, the memory is etched in my memory as if it were only yesterday. 

And now it’s happened again!  Arnold and Maria; the storybook fantasy about an abnormally large-faced Democrat from one of America’s royal political families finding eternal happiness with a physically hulking strangely-accented Republican movie star; is suddenly over.

They were a dream couple, a match that seemed so perfect on the surface.  Much like other iconic couples we’ve so admired; Lisa Marie and Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney and Heather Mills or the passionate May-December love story of Anna Nicole Smith and J. Howard Marshall.  They seemed so right for each other. 

An entire country had wake up this morning to the shock of news reports that Maria has moved out of her and Arnold’s Brentwood mansion just a few short months after he finally moved back in.  With them living in separate cities due to his gubernatorial duties the last eight years; one would have thought that hearts would have grown fonder.

Perhaps his being around again has led her to take him for granted and forget how good things used to be.  Remember her learning about his planning to run for governor via his interview on the Tonight Show?  Everyone knew he planned it as a wonderfully romantic surprise for her; much like proposing via the scoreboard at Fenway Park.  It was such a thoughtful and touching gesture; at that moment every woman in America wanted to be married to such a thoughtful and considerate partner.

And now the storybook seems to be on its final page.   It’s such a sad day for all of us who believe in romantic fairytales and true love.  How can the editor possibly blame me if I just can’t blog today?

Copyright, Cheryl Tully Stoll, 2011