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.

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