We'll Miss You, Dorothy.

Beatrice "Bea" Arthur
(May 13, 1922 – April 25, 2009)

Yesterday a legend of stage and television passed away. Beatrice Arthur left this mortal realm, pushed down the river Styx by the cruel, indifferent paddles of cancer. She was 86.

I grew up watching The Golden Girls. Why, you ask, would a young boy of budding loins watch a sitcom about four old women trying to get laid? Did I see a little bit of myself in this quadruplet of horny geriatrics? Perhaps, friends, perhaps.

Oh, Sophia, the sharp-tongued shaman of the group. Her barbed wit was my own, and every pointless, moralless story of hers buoyed me. She was sharp, cold sometimes, but in her ran a riptide of deep concern that, in times of trouble, upended the feet of her friends and pulled them away from danger, towards the comforting, brackish waters of the Messina Strait. Dio ti benedica, Sophia.

Rose! Oh, Rose, the ray of sunshine, playfully dancing just above the legal line of mental retardation. Rose was unbridled enthusiasm and optimism personified in a stupid Norwegian woman. She was the life raft of the group, for when things grew dark, her empty head kept them afloat and laughing. Those Golden Girls fed on her non sequiturs like honey, and it was good.

Blanche. The Southern queen that danced on the edge of whoredom, but never quite crossed over. Lovingly dubbed a "human mattress" by Sophia, Blanche was actually the legal owner of the house the girls lived in; and though the kingdom was hers, she shared it as if they were all queens. Though she was selfish, self-destructive, and a borderline sex addict with dependency issues, she always put her friends first, except a man's junk was in the vicinity - and if that isn't true friendship, what in God's name is?

Finally, Dorothy. As sour as spoiled milk and as bitter as a drag queen, Dorothy had a hard exterior; but to delve beneath her crust one finds...well, yes, an even harder interior. But, keep going, explorer! Dig even deeper, past the still quite bitter outer core of her heart, and you will find an shimmering inner core of pure, priceless gold.

Now, though the beauty of that gilded core is shrouded in Dorothy's cold, impenetrable sternum, and its vulnerable, sonorous beat is rendered inaudible by her unsettlingly mannish demeanor, it still exists, friends - it still exists. Yes, the "Golden" in these Golden Girls was Dorothy, and let us never forget that. Rest in peace, mia bella.