When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Maya Angelou’s poem is a fitting tribute to the great souls we have lost in recent weeks, giants in their fields who lived into their 90s. Their long careers kept them in the public eye for decades and contributed significant bodies of work that reshaped their respective fields. Their deaths leave gaping holes in our cultural landscape.
Stephen Sondheim, a towering figure in American musical theatre, died on November 26 at 91. In his hands, the genre was transformed from mostly linear stories with singable tunes and happy endings to artistically and intellectually complex works dealing with unhappy marriages, murderous barbers, assassins, obsessive love, and an impressionist painting. His take on fairy tales, Into the Woods, exposes the reality that very few people live “happily ever after.” One of the first artists to write both music and lyrics, Sondheim reflected a deep understanding of human nature, often expressed with a sense of yearning that gives his music a spiritual depth.
One month later on December 26, Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu died at age 90. For his tireless activism to end Apartheid in South Africa he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 and earned global respect as an advocate for justice. After Apartheid fell in 1990, he chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a form of restorative justice that allowed amnesty to those who confessed their role in the decades-long system of minority rule. He remained vigilant, criticizing ongoing inequities in South Africa and Black leaders who failed to live up to the ideals set out by Nelson Mandela and other early leaders of the African National Congress. A powerful preacher and spiritual leader, Tutu’s influence transcended his own Christian tradition.
On the same day, evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson died at at 92. After losing vision in one eye from a childhood fishing accident, he turned his good eye to what he could discover on the ground, leading him to become a foremost scholar of insects, specifically ants. His love for life in all its forms, captured in his 1986 book Biophilia, prompted his efforts to preserve earth’s biodiversity. This work will be carried on by the E.O Wilson Foundation and the Half-Earth Project, a call to protect half of earth’s land and sea.
The death of Betty White on December 31, just weeks shy of her 100th birthday garnered perhaps the most media attention. She worked on television for over 70 years, and her influence extended off-campus, as a producer of her own shows since the 1950s. In 1954, she resisted pressure from southern TV stations to fire Arthur Duncan, a Black singer and dancer on her variety show. Her other life’s work was animal welfare. She will be remembered for her radiant smile, her kindness, her humor, her work ethic, and for never taking herself too seriously. Her agent noted that her death less than three weeks before planned celebrations of her 100th birthday may been Betty getting the last laugh.
The new year began with the January 6 death of 94-year-old actor Sidney Poitier, whose life was a classic rags to riches story. He rose from marginal beginnings, weighing just three pounds when born into a poor family in the Bahamas. After moving to New York, he neutralized his Caribbean accent by listening to the radio and traded janitorial work for acting lessons at the American Negro Theater. Although criticized for not playing more defiant characters, he brought dignity to every role he inhabited, becoming the first Black man to win an Academy Award. As his stature grew, he was able to negotiate for realistic depictions of his characters. The original script for In the Heat of the Night called for detective Virgil Tibbs to be slapped by a white man he is questioning. Poitier insisted that Tibbs slap him back. He took part in Civil Rights marches, but his primary contribution to that movement was using the powerful medium of cinema to transform the image of African Americans, who had been mostly relegated to subservient, often demeaning roles up to that point.
This week, the world lost Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh on January 22 at age 95. His anti-war activism in his native Vietnam led Martin Luther King, Jr. to nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize and sowed the seeds of engaged Buddhism, in which meditation prompts social action. Exiled from Vietnam until 2005, he established Plum Village monastery in France and became known worldwide for his prolific writing and teaching about mindfulness and our inescapable interconnection. Like Tutu, he transcended the bounds of his own religion and was active in interfaith encounters, explaining Buddhism to Christians and Christianity to Buddhists. His last published book, Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet, was released in October 2021 and continues his environmental advocacy.
Awarded the highest honors in their fields, these six lives cannot be summarized by a list of achievements and awards. As their legacies, they left us deeply moving songs, clarion calls for justice, unflinching curiosity, resilient optimism, dignified images of Black manhood, and mindful awareness that our lives are inseparable from the world around us. The world is richer for their lives, and thanks to their long careers, their impact will be with us for many years to come.
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.
– Maya Angelou, When Great Trees Fall
Notes:
I recognize that many important and influential figures have been lost in recent weeks, but these six stand out to me for their long lives and illustrious careers.
Sources for this post are the lengthy obituaries in The New York Times, Terry Gross’s insightful interviews on NPR’s Fresh Air, and reflections on the deaths of these icons in Time and Christianity Century magazines.