Napo 3

Today's prompt was to write a fan letter. I love Betty White, so here's my freewrite about her!

Dear Betty White,

A fan letter.

Dear Betty,

Can I call you Betty? Or maybe

Mrs. White? Or how about Rose?

That’s always how I’ll think of you –

The goody-two shoes woman

Who lived life to the fullest

Every episode, who found joy

In joyless situations, who reframed

What it meant to grow old

With a smile. Rose, thank you

For being a friend, to me,

As a teen, watching the re-runs

On lifetime, I learned about friendship,

The power that comes from women

Sitting around a kitchen table,

Solving all the problems of the world,

From sex to men to cheesecakes running out,

To AIDs, to healthcare, to aging, to loneliness.

I learned that life wasn’t going to end

After “I do,” after children, after menopause,

You wore pastels like a schoolgirl

as if to tell the world fuck you with a sweet smile.

You refused to go quietly –

To sit back in your rocking chair

And knit your own oblivion in silence.

You roared, Betty, in the face of age,

Your body still so full of life

As you tap danced in tight pants.

You are a blooming rose in winter,
a lone rubicund flash in a field of snow. 

And now, Betty, you make the world laugh

With you at your antics at 90 –

To prove that life goes on

If you have a sense of humor,

that a face full of wrinkles

is only a sign of the beginning.

Betty, one day I hope to have

Smile lines like you.