Farrah’s Legacy

Some people leave our lives with all the pomp and circumstance of a final commencement, while others gracefully move on leaving a mark so deep, you never forget.  I find this is what Farrah Fawcett did in my life.   My generation,  Generation X,  had heard of Farrah… hell who hadn’t!   Even Gen X children were jealous of her hair and that smile.   I can’t imagine being a woman in my parents generation and having to compete with that as the standard for beauty!

Farrah was an over night pin up success.  She was beauty, she was style, she was heat, she was desire, she was raw… hot… powerful…. SEX!

In a one piece bathing suit, with no tattoos, no extreme beauty makeovers, no bikini,  she was woman… in woman’s truest form.   Soft, sensual, beauty…….with eyes and a smile that screamed innocence.   What was it my grandmother used to say?  Be a lady in the kitchen and a tiger in the bedroom?  With one poster, Farrah promised all this and more to an entire generation.

Where does a woman go with extreme beauty and so-so acting ability?  Enter “The Burning Bed”.   Take away the beauty.  Strip her bare of all she knows, remove the feminine wiles, remove the hair, remove the smiles.

Give her a topic no one wants to discuss, but the times dictate someone has to.  Times are changing.  Woman’s roles are changing.  Woman’s rights are changing.  Abuse is being discussed, and not in hushed tones.  Here comes Farrah, stripped of all her beauty… ready to make you listen.  Ready to make you cry.  Farrah in her own quiet way, stood up and shouted, “This is not okay!”.  She embraced the controversy.  Opening herself up to so much criticism in her own personal and sometimes turbulent love life.   I wish I knew what emotions were opened up inside of her while filming?  Did she draw strength, or did she silently scream in pain?

“The Burning Bed” opened the door for Farrah to star in “Extremities”, another woman empowered after abuse story.  She took this to stage and screen.

All of this is insightful.  It allows us to look into the woman, albeit briefly, during a time where woman’s roles were changing almost daily.   Farrah lived in a time where woman went from being a side dish to being the main attraction.   She lived during a time that women fought for the right to be more than just beauty, women were smart too.  Women deserved to be more than kitchen help………. Farrah watched women become CEO’s, CFO’s, and everything in between….  All without ever saying she was a feminist.

I don’t remember where I was when I found out Farrah had cancer, but I will forever remember where I was when I found out she died.   Farrah having cancer came into my life just like everything else Farrah did…quietly.   I believe I was driving in my car, and the radio station news team was discussing how it was leaked to the press through her hospital that her cancer had returned.  I remember saying to myself…. hmmm, returned?  I didn’t know she was sick.  How horrible to have it broadcast across the news stations before you could tell your family.  It then left my mind, which was filled with my own life, my own illness and my own battles.

Time went by, and my own illness ate up every second of my day.  I was bed ridden, and had just started a new treatment.  Lupus, like cancer is a silent attacker.  I went from being on a plane with my kids, going on a family vacation, to being in congestive heart failure within a blink of an eye… I was only 38.  I found myself in bed, wallowing in self pity.  My friends, my children, all there…..  my family…. as absent as they have always been.   It has been a silent battle for me the past few years.   I have tried to reach out to my family, for support, and received none.   So here I was, in bed… 38 years old… congestive heart failure, my kids by my side, my friends (who are my family) by my side, my wife never leaving my side.  I was to sick to even lift my head, but I see advertised that later that night, a documentary on Farrah was being aired.

I asked my wife to make sure I was awake for “Farrah’s Story” later that night.  And there I sat, in my bed, wide eyed, crying at times so hard I could not breath… but never looking away, never turning it off.  I hadn’t been able to stay awake for more than an hour at a time in days, and here I was having the most emotional battle of my life and unable to stop.   My wife sat with me, crying.  We watched this woman battle every one and every thing.  The media, the hospitals, the health care system, the health care workers, Farrah took them all on.  At one point, she is so ill that they try and turn off the cameras…and she refused to let them.  She wanted the world to see her fighting, she wanted the world to see what cancer was, she wanted the world to not pity her………. but get angry!  Get angry that this is the health care system we have accepted!  Farrah never once wanted any pity.  She never once asked for help.  She never once claimed to be dying.  She fought.  Farrah fought on and on and on.  She never gave up.  She never stopped smiling.  Her loved ones by her side fighting with her, fighting for her, fighting because they loved her.

I found myself at first jealous.  Jealous of this dying woman who had so much love.  I watched her with her father, and their loving relationship… and I wanted to scream why am I not good enough?  Why do I reach out to my mother just to have my hand slapped back down over and over?  Then I was ashamed.  Ashamed at myself for being jealous of a woman fighting for her life.  Jealous because she was surrounded by family and friends.  I looked at my wife, and I was ashamed.  I too was surrounded by family and friends.  I can not change my family, I can only change myself.   In that instant I understood.  If my family can not see in me, what everyone else sees… If my family does not value me, as everyone else does… then they do not deserve my tears.  I am worth so much more.

Thanks Farrah.

In that instant I understood no matter  what the illness or battle, never give in.  Never give up.  So I changed doctors and went in another treatment direction……. and am now on my way back into remission.

Thanks Farrah.

In that instant I understood that with class comes respect.  Here was a woman that handled her illness with class.  She handled her battle with class.  She handled herself with class….. even while posing for Playboy ( twice by the way, and the second time at the age of 50!).  Here was a woman that had earned my respect through her actions, and I respect few.

Thanks Farrah!

Since Farah’s passing I have been very vocal about her death.  I have told as many people as I can about her documentary, and have told anyone with an illness that it may be hard to watch…but you can gather a strength you never knew you had by watching it and learning from it.

Farrah Fawcett, you were laid to rest yesterday, and I thought I had put your passing behind me.  After all, I didn’t even know you personally… yet as I write this I can barely see the screen through my tears……  That is your legacy!  The power to still move people even after you are gone.

Thanks Farrah!

Now sleep Farah, your fight is over…….

© 2009, KymberStyle. All rights reserved.

Tags: CANCER, Farrah Fawcett, farrah fawcett death, Farrah's Story, SLE