Goodbye, England's Rose

On this day 29 years ago, Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris.  She was 36 years old.

Her death was one of Gen X's "Where were you when you heard the news?" moments.  Many of us had risen in the wee hours of the morning to watch her wedding in 1981; we learned of her death at much the same time of day, 16 years later.

In Roman mythology, Diana was goddess of the hunt.  In a cruel twist of fate on that terrible Paris night, the huntress became the hunted - a fox run to ground by a pack of blood-thirsty hounds.

It's heart-breaking to think of how much more good she could've done if her life hadn't been cut short.  May her memory always be a blessing. 

And your footsteps will always fall here

Along England's greenest hills

Your candle's burned out long before

Your legend ever will

Photo:  Tim Graham/Getty Images

I Will Always Love You

The world lost the incomparable Dolly Parton today.

Thank you for everything, Dolly.  The joy, the light, the philanthropy, the music.

May you rest in peace.

I hope life treats you kind

And I hope you have all you've dreamed of

And I wish you joy and happiness

But above all this, I wish you love

Photo: David McClister

May There Always Be Sunshine

On this day in 1985, a thirteen-year-old girl named Samantha Smith died in a plane crash in Maine, along with her father Arthur and six other people.

If the name is unfamiliar to you, you're not alone.  I had no idea who she was.  Her name floated into my orbit only a few days ago, and I needed to know more.

In 1982, when tensions were high between the US and the Soviet Union, 10-year-old Samantha wrote a letter to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov.  She was afraid of nuclear war and asked Andropov if he were going to attack the US.  When months went by without a response, she sent a letter to Soviet ambassador to the US Anatoly Dobrynin, asking if Andropov planned to respond.

In early 1983, she received a letter from Andropov, who stated that the Soviet Union wanted peace, not war.  He invited Samantha and her parents to visit, which they did in July 1983.

She spent a portion of her time at the Young Pioneer camp in Artek, making new friends and learning Russian songs and dances.  One song was "May There Always Be Sunshine," and it was a Soviet song whose lyrics spoke of hope, peace, and the simple joys of life.

Samantha wrote a book about her Soviet experience entitled Journey to the Soviet Union.  You can read it for free on Archive.org:  Journey to the Soviet Union : Smith, Samantha, 1972-1985 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The impression she made on the Soviet Union was indelible.  After her death, they built monuments, put her on a stamp, and gave her name to many things:  streets, a diamond, a mountain, an asteroid, a new flower cultivar, and an ocean vessel.  In the US, there was a peace garden in Michigan named for her, along with elementary schools in Washington and NYC.  In front of the Maine State Museum in Augusta there's a statue of her, showing her releasing a dove with a bear cub resting at her feet.

It's hard to know if she would have continued being an activist as she grew older.  It grieves me to think that the world may've lost a valuable peace ambassador on that awful day in August.

She left behind such a remarkable legacy.  And it all began with a simple letter written by - in the words of Yuri Andropov - "a courageous and honest girl, resembling Becky, the friend of Tom Sawyer in the famous book of your compatriot Mark Twain."

May her memory always be a blessing.

May there always be sunshine,

May there always be blue skies,

May there always be my mama,

May there always be me!