I actually yelled out loud when I got a text the other day. The receptionist at the cemetery where my parents are buried called to tell me the marker was in for my mom, who died in December, (which isn’t what made me yell). As I was looking at the picture of my mom’s new marker, I received a text from my little brother announcing the news that Angela Lansbury had joined mom and dad. I called out, “No!!” And eventually started laughing as my coworkers came running, thinking something terrible had happened.
It had, but not in the way they expected.
Let me explain.
I grew up in a family that loved movies. My parents were the first to get a Betamax and, though it was the size of a small car, the quality of the video tapes was great and we enjoyed watching movies together every Friday night and Sunday afternoon. When the local theater hosted Sunday showings of all of Alfred Hitchcock‘s movies for a semester, we were there. One of my mothers favorite movie stars was Angela Lansbury. She loved the music from Mame and would start playing – and singing, “We Need A Little Christmas” long before Thanksgiving. She could watch, The Shell Seekers again and again.
I was 26 years old when I moved out of my parents’ house. I stayed an extra year or two because I could not rationalize paying rent for an apartment and I wanted to buy a house. Plus, my parents had requested that I stay while my brother was sick. I think we all knew how that story might end and it I do not think my mother was ready for any more upheaval. So, a year and a half after my brother died, I bought a house and went out on my own. I made a deal with my parents that I would come back every Sunday night to watch Murder, She Wrote. It was a habit that had started several years earlier and, as busy as I was with work and ministry and graduate school, it was a promise I kept until the series ran its course.
My father would have to watch Murder, She Wrote in the other room. I think it’s actually how his den became his den. He would appear in the doorway within the first ten minutes of the show with a grin on his face like he had just eaten the last piece of pie. He had already solved the murder and wanted to announce the results of his brief investigation. My mother would, sometimes playfully sometimes forcefully, yell at him to get out and go back to his cave. He would chuckle to himself as he walked away, sometimes muttering, “I know who did it.“ He was almost always right.
If I could not make it home for a particular episode, mom would tape the show so we could watch it another time. Invariably, she would miss the ending or tape over something someone else wanted to see. In those days, if you missed a show, you missed a show. To this day, I do not know who killed one of the ladies at Loretta’s beauty parlor.
When my wife and I started dating, Maureen invited me to go to a special event at the Kennedy center. The city of Atlanta was hosting a night with Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, as a means of enticing meeting planners to choose Atlanta for an event. Maureen was invited and it seemed like a great opportunity for a free date and time to spend together, so I drove from Delaware to Washington for the evening. (The thought of doing that now makes me want to take a nap.) It turned out the evening with Sarah Ferguson included a special guest. The special guest was Angela Lansbury.
The two formidable women sat on stage and talked about family and the struggle of living in the limelight, something about which both knew well. Angela Lansbury‘s husband, Peter Shaw, had recently died so that was a topic of discussion, moving the audience to tears. The great star of stage and screen told stories of finding work in Hollywood, being a woman in a man’s world, the stars with whom she had shared the stage, the influence of her own mother, and the decision to move her family to Ireland so that her two oldest children could get clean from their use of drugs. They moved to the town in Ireland that my great grandfather had left nearly a century before. Another connection.
At the end of the evening, we were invited to a VIP reception. Maureen and I walked in and sat down at a table for three in the corner, leaving one empty chair. We were not quite sure what to expect and the food had not yet been delivered to the reception, an ironic scene considering the attendees were all meeting planners. Shortly after we sat down, Angela Lansbury walked through the door. She was much taller than I thought she’d be. She was unaccompanied and, spotting us in the corner, and for reasons I will never understand, walked directly to the table and sat down with Maureen and me.
At first, there was silence. I remember Maureen and I looking at each other, wondering what to do. Then I decided to jump in. I took the chance to tell her what she meant to my mother and my family and me. We talked about my father having to watch Murder, She Wrote in the other room, to which she playfully replied, “Well, dear, we tried not to make it too difficult.”
We joked about why anyone would ever hang out with Jessica Fletcher because, as my dad always pointed out, “Everywhere she went, someone died” and she laughed when I questioned why the townsfolk never made her the sheriff.
We talked about my coming home after leaving to go out on my own. We talked about family. We talked about parents and I got to thank her for creating a connection between a mother and her son. It wasn’t a long conversation and just before one of the hosts came to whisk her away to sign autographs, she took my hand and thanked me for sharing the stories. She signed my program and off she went. It was not as much of a brush with fame as it was an encounter with an old friend. Though we had never met before that moment, she had been a part of my life for years.
Murder, She Wrote, that cute little television show is now available to stream and it seems so quaint given everything else that’s available online. Still, it will always remind me of a simpler time, the love of parents, the meaning of home, and a brief encounter with a great lady.
Rest in peace Mrs. Fletcher. Give my love to mom and dad.
