36 plus 50 doesn't equal 86

A Sunday morning fifty years today, I was sitting with my family in our wacko little church, listening to the preacher rant, when in the middle of the sermon he told us that Marilyn Monroe had been found dead that morning, at age 36, in L.A.  My mom and I looked at each other with shock on our faces:  Marilyn was a film icon, way too young and vibrant to be dead.  The pastor used the moment to remind us of worldliness doom, the wages of sin, etc., which to me sounded like "She got what she deserved" (He got what he deserved too, but that's another story).

Marilyn, in death, ended up being even more of an icon, a legend who would never grow old.