Molly Ivins, 62, Deceased.

The first column I read by Molly Ivins was in highschool. Over the last few years, as I became more interested in politics, I found myself reading her columns more often. I liked her style. She got down to bid’ness and didn’t use flowery prose or tortous logic to get her point across.

During the summer, her columns started to come less frequently, I read she had relapsed into cancer. She was going through chemo and lost her hair. But she kept writing in the same fiery tone.

Suddenly, the columns stopped altogether. For two months, I checked common dreams everyday and read my op-ed columns, but none from her. I guess I had thought that she would get better, that the stubborn, take no quarter spirit would prevail over the cancer.

Then, last week, after not checking common dreams for a while, I read Maya Angelou’s essay.

I will miss that fiery spirit. I will miss that stubborn will that always spoke truth to power. I will miss the hope and the anger her writing made me feel. But, the mistakes and abuses she wrote about continue and it would not do justice to her memory to merely grieve.

 

Comments are closed.