We'll Miss You, Shirley Temple Black

The news of Shirley Temple's death was everywhere this morning. And half the people I've seen talking about it on social media have also felt the need to mention that they thought she was already dead.

I'm guessing a large part of that is because, despite her political career in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, most people think of her as the eternal tot. The little lisping girl with cubby cheeks, a head full of curls, and a lot of moxie. The epitome of adorable in the 20th century. The girl that every other little girl actor would be compared to for the rest of time.

I also grew up watching Shirley Temple films. Because my mother grew up watching them in the 50s and 60s, when Miss Temple was already retired from film but still a big deal on television with Shirley Temple's Storybook.

Most people think of her younger work- Little Miss Marker-ear. But we tended to watch her later work, especially if it was based on a book, like Heidi and The Little Princess. She was actually acting in those, rather than just being the adorable little girl. They're dramatic as hell (for Shirley Temple) and Heidi especially would make me cry every time.

I remember watching The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer in my tweens and being so excited to see a teenaged Shirley Temple movie. And then being really disturbed by the plot of a 17-year-old girl falls in love with random adult, played by Cary Grant, and her family convinced him to LEAD HER ON. Even though he doesn't want anything to do with her! Crazy, I swear. Old movies have some bonkers plots, folks. Especially if Cary Grant was involved. It doesn't help that the film was written by the man that would go on to create I Dream of Jeannie.

It was weird to see her looking so much older, yet still so much like that tiny little girl. She resembled Debbie Reynolds at the time, actually. Reynolds wouldn't even make her first movie until the year after The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, and wouldn't even become known until Temple was out of the game in the 50s. Almost makes you wonder if there was only room for Reynolds once Temple had stepped down.

Anyway, what I really remember Shirley Temple for is the Shirley Temple doll my mother had. My mother was not the type to hang onto childhood toys. Mostly due to the fact that she had six younger siblings, four of them girls, and her old toys would make their way through the family until they, presumably, just turned to dust in the youngest sister's hands.

But the Shirley Temple doll survived.

She did not, however, survive unscathed. I remember my mother showing me the doll when I was about five and I was mystified by the thought that it was supposed to resemble the cute little girl from the black and white movies. The face and arms were marred with dark streaks and the hair looked like something between a pointy anime hair style and an afro. Too long and too snarled in odd shapes.

There was also the fact that she had no clothing. That didn't help my imagination with trying to see Shirley Temple in the doll. I was convinced my mother had been duped and no one had the heart to tell her that she just had some old doll.

Many years later, she found someone to restore the doll. She found a dress to fit the doll and shoes and socks that fit it as well. And when the doll was returned to our house, it was clear of black marks and the hair had been painstakingly restored to shiny sausage curls, somehow. It is now lovingly displayed on the piano in my parents' house. In a tiny doll chair, next to pictures of family members. Another family keepsake.

It still does not, however, look like Shirley Temple to me.

Rest in peace, Shirley Temple Black. You've been a legend for 60 years and will continue to be so.

Mister Sandman? Bring me, Dream.

When I was growing up, trips to the bookstore with my mother were a regular treat. No sarcasm.

I would ask her how much I could spend, she would give me a limit, and then we'd part ways for at least an hour.

There were difficult decisions to be made. $25 could be split so many ways. It could be one to maybe even two hardcover books. It could be up to 5, if I played my cards right, paperback books. Maybe more, if I was feeling Dover-Thrift-y.

Or it could be one graphic novel.

As I didn't have a driver's license until I was almost 19 and didn't have money until I was in my twenties (and not much at that), I relied on my mother's bookstore trips to get the bulk of my graphic novels and comics.

When I was about 15 (maybe a little before I turned 15), I discovered Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, which, the time, had just recently finished its original run. I picked up the first volume collection, "Preludes and Nocturnes" and immediately fell in love. 

It was so perfectly paced. So delicately worded. Everything about it was so precisely... meant. The only issue I ever had with it was the quality of the art at times. Which is my major qualm about most comics most of the time.

But the story... the story is the thing.

I continued to read the series, but was only able to buy about one volume per year. Yeah. One per year. 

Once I did have a license and some money, I then relied solely on finding the next volume in person. No online purchasing. I'm not sure why I did this, as I love to buy stuff online, but there was something great about walking into a bookstore or comic store, finding the Vertigo books, and looking for the right volume. Often, the one I needed would be the only one missing (currently, this is my issue with Y: The Last Man). But the day I saw it and had the $20+ to buy it? That was a great day.

But then came my super-broke years, coinciding with the heart-breaking realization at the end of Worlds' End, which then I was just stuck with and unable to read the follow-up of. 

And I couldn't buy The Kindly Ones for ages yet, because it was so freakin' big and expensive.

The day I got my first big paycheck, I bought it. And read it.

And then I became overworked and at some point forgot that I had already bought and read it. For I bought it again last year. And read it again, saying, "Hmm, I've clearly read this before..." and then noticed there was already a copy (of a different edition version, at least, on my shelf).

But then, this year, I finally bought The Wake. And then proceeded to stare at the cover of my copy of The Wake. I knew what was coming- but would it measure up? Would I be heart-broken to see it end? I know there have been additional stories by Gaiman and others, in more recent years- but this was the original intended story. I knew it was going to have AN ENDING. But I wasn't ready for the ending, despite the thirteen years of build up.

In the end, I spent New Years Day, a terrible blizzard-y day anyway, reading The Wake. And it turns out, really, most of the story was actually already told. Which shouldn't be a surprise, as there had been 9 volumes worth of story the preceded it. But have you ever realized how many long arc multi-part stories often leave ALMOST EVERYTHING IMPORTANT to the last installment? I was expecting that. Instead, I got a well crafted story that had been wrapping things up all along. Something all stories should do but never actually do. Except for this one.

In some ways, it was a little too wrapped up. Half of the issue was indeed the ending and a respectable ending at that. But the rest was... added fluff. I know others will disagree, but I cared a lot more to see the actual wake and fall-out than to read about Shakespeare's life again or about a man and a kitten in a desert. And it made me appreciate those stories less because they came after the fact. I don't know why, exactly, I feel that way.

I thought I would have so many more thoughts on the subject once I finally finished the story. I thought I was going to have my mind blown and fucked with one last and very hard time. But, instead, I was given a lovely story with a lovely end. And I almost feel like I understand what it is to sit side-by-side with Death as you realized "Oh, this is it? Huh." but she continues to sit with you while you come to terms, quite and accepting of everything about you.

Okay, maybe that's not exactly what it feels like. Finishing Sandman was not like meeting Death.

But I don't really know where to go from here. When I finished the previous volumes, my mind would be reeling and I'd be both hopeful to soon pick up the next volume while also cautious of getting one step closer to the end, ending an experience that started when I was a very different person, and through various different versions of myself, I continued to love this series. What would happen when it ended? What would happen when I reached that book with the ominous title of "The Wake". 

I don't feel the need to pick up any of the spin-off or follow-ups. Not yet. It's too soon. But I feel like something needs to happen to signify that it was a major thing to finally finish the series. But I don't know what.

Because I don't know what I feel like, having finished it. What do I do now?

I mean, other than continue to think about how to put together an amazing Death costume for C2E2, that is.