Letter from Yoko to John - 12/8/2007

Tomorrow is the 27th anniversary of the death of John Lennon. Yoko has written a letter to him on her website, Imagine Peace.

I miss you, John. 27 years later, I still wish I could turn back the clock to the Summer of 1980. I remember everything - sharing our morning coffee, walking in the park together on a beautiful day, and seeing your hand stretched to mine - holding it, reassuring me that I shouldn't worry about anything because our life was good.
I had no idea that life was about to teach me the toughest lesson of all. I learned the intense pain of losing a loved one suddenly, without warning, and without having the time for a final hug and the chance to say, "I love you," for the last time. The pain and shock of that sudden loss is with me every moment of every day. When I touched John's side of our bed on the night of December 8th, 1980, I realized that it was still warm. That moment has haunted me for the past 27 years - and will stay with me forever.

Link

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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katelaity

LICENSE FARM, re: I wrote this whole treatise on how it’s a magickal grimoire in art book drag; I have to try to sell one of the occult blogs on it.

If you’re not averse to print, you might try New Witch. They might well be open to the topic. I agree wholeheartedly with your characterization of her work. This is, after all, the woman who proudly declared in song, “Yes, I’m a Witch” (nifty remixes too). Art is magic. A pity we’re still waiting for the day that a powerful woman doesn’t terrify people.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Crazies attach themselves to fast-moving brightly-colored objects. They pick out someone, identify with them or imagine a close connection with them, and in a small number of tragic cases wind up killing them. It’s connection gone wrong.
License Farm

I read an interesting quote somewhere to the effect of “Yoko Ono didn’t ruin John Lennon’s career; if anything, John Lennon ruined Yoko Ono’s career.” I’d never had any particular feelings about Ono up until a little over a year ago when I read her ’60′s compilation Grapefruit and realized how brilliant she is. I wrote this whole treatise on how it’s a magickal grimoire in art book drag; I have to try to sell one of the occult blogs on it. It’s remarkable how much ostracization this woman has endured in her entire life, yes, even while of aristocratic breeding, and yet she maintains a generally sunny perspective, in large part to honor her late husband.
deckard68

“I’ve never understood the intense hatred some people have for her.”

I believe it has to do with how she has controlled John Lennon’s history with an eye towards editing out anything she feels reflects badly on herself. Many people have the impression she was John Lennon’s only wife, for example, because she omits Cynthia Lennon from any official histories. And then there’s some love song that John wrote about another woman, which after his death she reedited to insert an “I love you, Yoko” into it. So it could be that some people just think she’s a control freak who is not a trustworthy person when it comes to preserving John Lennon’s history.
PopArtDiva

It’s been 27 years? My God, it feels like yesterday. Now I am remembering it’s been 44 years since the death of JFK and 39 years since the death of RFK and Martin Luther King.
This not only makes me feel sad, it makes me feel old. Somehow our promised land was shot out from under us wasn’t it?
themagus

“Many people have the impression she was John Lennon’s only wife, for example, because she omits Cynthia Lennon from any official histories. And then there’s some love song that John wrote about another woman, which after his death she reedited to insert an “I love you, Yoko” into i”

haven’t you ever had a girlfriend before? that’s what women do.
Gareth Branwyn

Thanks for posting this, Mark.

Reading that letter from Yoko to John made me ball like a baby, thinking about what a giant Lennon was in my personal pantheon, and what a huge loss it was to me (to all of us).

And then the loss of my own wife, also by violence (at her own hand), and the “silent anger” of OUR beautiful son “over not having his [Mother], whom he loved so much, around to share his life with.”

“I learned the intense pain of losing a loved one suddenly, without warning, and without having the time for a final hug and the chance to say, “I love you,” for the last time. The pain and shock of that sudden loss is with me every moment of every day.”

Me too.

“This pain has to stop.”

Here’s hoping.
Cochonerie

I’m going to have to agree with the person that said Lennon destroyed her career, and not the other way around. Instead of being known as an artist of worth, she’ll always be John’s wife. I don’t think she minds though. The truth is, the Beatles more or less died (as a functional unit) once their manager committed suicide/accidentally overdosed. Although the music continued to be excellent, the band itself went downhill after that.
Bonnie

I’ll never understand his death. To kill one of the few advocates for peace throughout the world is beyond tragic.
daylmer

*sigh* so many tears at reading that beautiful love letter. So many tears to see that video and hear that song. So many tears to think this beautiful man was killed by violence. We owe it to him to “give REAL PEACE a chance”. Please, post this link on every blog you can. It is only by spreading his word that we will sell “the product” that he wanted to sell: PEACE

Peace to all out there and ((((Hugs))))) to all as well.
EH

Ahhhh…Yoko rules.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

I’m glad to see readers making use of the Lookitthat button.
flickersticks

Just amazing. I can’t imagine what she’s lived through. It’s so touching, and still so incredibly relevant to our world this very moment…. Ahh! I’m officially teary-eyed at work.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Try to pull yourself together, Flickersticks.
gomifune51

Dear FLICKERSTICKS:
She was born an aristocrat:

Ono was born in 1933. Her mother was Isoko Ono, of the Yasuda banking family, and her father was Eisuke Ono, who worked for the Yokohama Specie Bank. Two weeks before she was born, her father was transferred to San Francisco. The rest of the family followed soon after. In 1937, her father was transferred back to Japan and Ono was enrolled at Tokyo’s Peers’ School, the most exclusive school in Japan, open only to those descended from aristocrats (in the House of Peers) or the imperial family.
franko

i was only 13 when john was killed, but he was (and still is) my favorite beatle (although george gives him a run for the money sometimes).

anyway, i will never forget that day. like i said, i was only 13, but it was clear to me that the world changed that day — it’s like a part of every adult i knew had died, and i felt it right along with them. i am also part japanese, so i have always been drawn to yoko, too, and have always taken up her defense when people slam her. it’s been said here and other places before, but hatred of her really IS based in thinly-veiled racism, and leftover resentment (and national guilt?) from WWII.

she is an amazing, creative, passionate woman, and i think it’s a testament to john’s compassion and forward-thinking that he stood by her every step of the way. we miss you john, and our hearts are with you, yoko, on your hardest day of every year.
Gloria

Why is Yoko’s background relevant? Aren’t we talking about a woman who lost her husband, quite publicly?
june

She was born an aristocrat

So??

I’m no fan of Yoko Ono’s art (I don’t dislike it, it’s just not my thing), but I’ve never understood the intense hatred some people have for her. You’d think she’d killed John Lennon herself, the way some people spew venom about her.

Oh wait, yes I do understand: misogyny with a dash of racism.
noen

Isn’t it interesting that only the most progressive and forward leaders get targeted by a lone assassin? Only those who seem to be truly influencing the world for the better seem to get gunned down in cold blood. I think it’s odd.
kip w

I blame Billy Graham for foaming and fulminating against Lennon after his offhand “bigger than Jesus” line was quoted (looks to me like nothing more sinister than an idiom). A conflicted fan who wanted to be a good Christian carried out the jihad a few years late.

Speaking of that, I applaud the writer who wrote a piece on the shooting with a headline like “WORTHLESS FUCK KILLS LENNON” and refuses to name the crawling shit in the article. That’s how you do it.