Flounderlust

Why I Cried When I Heard Nora Died

Nora Ephron and her sister Delia once did an interview with Susan Stamberg on NPR. Three smart, urbane Jewish women. It drove me crazy. Don’t ask me why. I’ve got nothing against any of those qualities, but somehow the gushiness of their conversation rubbed me the wrong way. Never been a fan of Nora Ephron’s movies, though I never denied she was a talented writer. Also, and this is silly, her name always reminds me of that chemical they talk about in some drug commercial, norepinephrine. I think it’s a happy pill or a stabilize pill or something.

Anyway… today I turned on the radio and heard the end of an interview with Ephron. I thought it sounded like a repeat. She was talking about what people want for their last meal and a friend who died of throat cancer, unable to enjoy a last meal. The moral of the story was that you should eat every meal as if it were your last, not especially profound, but not the worst idea either. Just as I was wondering to myself why they were replaying this interview, the announcer said, “Nora Ephron died yesterday. She was 71.”

Maybe I’m tender about something else, but I felt tears well up. Suddenly, this person I didn’t especially care about mattered a lot to me. I never hated her movies, probably haven’t even seen many of them and was probably somewhat entertained when I did. She always had great casts with actors I enjoyed watching. So, yeah, it made me sad. Plus, 71 is not very old. And then there’s the way I came in in the middle of the story was just kind of thrown.

RIP, Nora