For most of my adulthood, every Saturday at 10:00 PM was a special time. We rarely missed an episode of Saturday Night Live. Sometimes, we’d drag an old TV out to the driveway, hook it up to a long, orange, industrial strength extension cord, plunk down our ratty old lawn chairs and watch it with our neighbors from across the street. All I needed was a pink flamingo in the yard, pink rollers in my hair, and a few of my teeth knocked out to complete the picture. I’ve seen the casts change, come, and go over the years, but my favorite included the guest we interviewed for today’s Celebrity Friday, Gilda Radner. She passed away from ovarian cancer at a very young age and was married to her soulmate, Gene Wilder, also an accomplished comedian. Here’s a sample of her work, in case you need your memory prodded.

Me: Erik, I’ll let you choose: Gilda Radner, Nicole Brown Simpson, Judy Gar–

Jamie: He’s gone.

Me: He didn’t even let me finish my sentence!

Jamie (giggling): I know!

(Pause)

Jamie: Oh, he’s back.

Me: Okay. Who’d you bring, Sweetie?

Jamie (laughing hard): Gilda Radner

Me: Oh, Gilda! Hi! How are you?

Jamie (giggling): Loud! Um, she’s already making me laugh! She’s showing up in kind of this belted A-frame skirt—totally looks like it’s from the 50s or early 60s.

Me: Oh, okay.

Jamie: She’s got a kind of modern top on, and her hair is a little bit long, brownish in color.  She looks thin. Oh, and she came in yelling that she’s supporting Detroit, but the way she said it was kind of sing-songy with heavy Jewish accent.

Me: Supporting Detroit in what way? You talking about football?

Gilda: You guys! I’m from Detroit!

Me: My bad!

Gilda (pumping her hand up in the air, palms up): Ooo-ooo-ooo!

We all laugh.

Me: I bet Detroit’s never been the same without you!

Gilda: I die, and it goes downhill.

Me: I know! Thanks a lot, Gilda! Anyway, so I guess you know why we’re here, and I’m so grateful for your time.

Gilda: Thank you very much.

Me: First question: Can you tell us what beliefs you had about death and the afterlife before you died?

(Pause)

Jamie bursts out laughing.

Me: Oh boy.

Jamie (laughing): Erik’s not helping!

Gilda (gasping): You mean there’s a god?!

Jamie: I wish I could imitate her voice! It’s kind of nasally and raspy.

Gilda: I wish I had known! Maybe I would have prayed to him!

Gilda and I laugh.

Gilda: I very much knew there was a god. My family was very structured in their Jewish religion. We had all the rituals down; we had all the traditions. It was a potluck when you went home as to which holiday it was now.

Me: Oh, boy. Well, they’re can’t be too many holidays, you know. Sometimes I think there aren’t enough!

Gilda: In the Jewish world, I think every day is labeled as something.

Me: Oh, yeah. Did your beliefs changed after you crossed over?

Jamie (giggling): Yes. Oh, she’s making fun of the holiday thing.

Gilda: Oh, now here we have another Jewish holiday; this is the day when Jesus had his first kiss, so we’re all going to celebrate his first kiss, because Jesus is our idol!

(Jesus? Really?)

Jamie: She rants really, really well!

Me: I bet! I’d love to see her in the same room as Chris Farley right now.

Jamie: Oh, no!

Me: You probably couldn’t keep up with those two!

Gilda: The Catholic and the Jew! Sounds like a perfect marriage!

Me: So, how did your beliefs change when you died?

Gilda: They became less structured. It was great to know that you didn’t have to take those steps to get to the gates of Heaven. We aren’t being judged for not following the rules.

Me: So we can be slackers? Is that what you’re saying?

Jamie (laughing hard): I, uh, I don’t even know how to keep up with her! “Yes you can be slackers.” She’s making these offhanded comments, you know, a black man wrote the Bible centuries ago—and like very racially inappropriate jokes for shock factor—not out of disrespect or anything.

Me: Of course not. She’s just doing her stand up.

Jamie: She’s enjoying herself.

Me: Yep.

Jamie: “You know that ni*#@r who wrote the Bible?”

Jamie and I giggle.

Me: That is so wrong in so many ways, Gilda!

Gilda (boisterously): Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Me: What was your transition like for you?

Gilda: Hell. It was hell.

Me: Aw.

Gilda: The moment of death and on is great. The moment of diagnosis and going through everything is hell.

Me: Oh, gosh.

Gilda: Because all of a sudden, everybody’s light in their eyes changes when they look at you. They know that you have something that can kill you, and they don’t know how to respond to you.

Me: Yeah.

Gilda: That’s the biggest thing our entire culture is lacking, and if anything in this world we need to change—skip elementary school. We’re gonna learn all that shit anyway. You skip elementary school and learn how to cope with and handle death.

Me: Yeah! After all, none of us is getting out of here alive!

Gilda: If you can’t handle death, how’re you going to handle life?

Me: Absolutely.

Gilda: I was shocked how people didn’t know how to support me during my transition. As you know, cancer took my life.

Jamie: I heard, “uvarian,” but that should be ovarian. Ovarian cancer.

Me: That’s right.

Gilda: It had spread, so I knew my time was coming, my body was weak. I was just waiting for the appropriate time, and when it came, it was like a warm blanket—kind of like when you pee in your bed unexpectedly. It’s warm and it’s soft and it’s—

Jamie can’t compose herself; she’s laughing so hard.

Gilda (deadpan): I’m just telling the truth! So, I’m a bit awkward in how I explain it! But that’s how my physical body felt. My spiritual body felt completely embraced and loved down to every imperfect cell that I ever created.

Me (tenderly): Aw, Sweetie.

Gilda: I’ve never felt a love like that before.

Me: Can you share your surroundings and your thoughts when you realized where you were?

Gilda: It literally brought me to tears—

Me: Aw, my goodness.

Gilda: — to know that you’re leaving the warm embrace of friendships and the family that you made—and you’re actually being blessed with something better.

Me: Whoa.

Gilda: I almost didn’t feel worthy enough.

Jamie: Now she’s choking me up. How does she do that? She had me laughing my ass off very inappropriately, and now I have tears running down my face.

Me: You’re turning into a schizophrenic, Jamie! Or bipolar! Manic Depressive.

Erik (teasingly): Come join me, Jamie!

We all laugh.

Me: So, what did your heaven look like?

Gilda: In many ways, it looked just like home, but the capabilities that you have here are just so different; they’re not confined anymore. Nothing confines the body anymore. Here you’ve got thought-energy, and the word “manifestation” is just what you do when you want to create something.

Me: Yeah.

Gilda: There’s lack of struggle.

Me: Ah.

Gilda: It takes some getting used to. You have to adjust to it. You can go to different worlds and different places and dimensions, and you can connect with people—spirits, entities—and meet them for the first time. We’re not all-knowing. We’re still learning, but we have the right to connect to the all-knowing source. That’s what our poorly structured religions are based on on earth.

Me: Was it your destiny to die when and how you did?

Gilda: Yes, yes. I don’t think it was by any fault or mistake, and the idea that it was ovarian cancer—the very right of a woman, you know, to procreate, to give birth. I abused myself. I didn’t like the way my body was; I didn’t like the way my voice sounded, so being a comedian was the perfect outlet.

Me: Ah.

Gilda: The only way I knew how to love myself was to make fun of it all and bring everybody on board with me. Through that underlying sabotaging energy, I created this cancer all on my own. I did this to myself and for myself.

Me: Why? Why did you do this for yourself? Was there also a grander purpose behind your death, like for the collective or as a lesson for you?

Gilda: Sincerely, as I look back, it was my way out. I don’t think I would have burned as brightly as I wanted to if I had a longer life.

Jamie: She has a very serious tone now. It’s not as giddy or colorful. She’s really grounded now.

Me: Yeah. Sounds like it. Gilda, can you describe what your afterlife looks like now?

Gilda: Well, I’m in touch with my family; I work a lot with people on Earth of all cultures in how to find joy with the bodies that they have and to find laughter in healthy ways instead of as a cover-up.

Me: So, you used laughter as a cover-up for your own pain?

Gilda: Absolutely.

Me: Comic relief, so to speak, for your own life.

Gilda: Well said.

Me: Okay. So, tell me what specifically your heaven looks like. Do you have a little house? Do you hang out on Earth?

Gilda: A lot of what I find comfortable is being a part of the earthly plane. I think you’ll find that’s a really common answer. You know, we have so many dimensions to come from, but were leaving this world; it’s absolutely natural that you’d be attracted to coming back to it.

Me: Yeah. Okay. What insights did you gain once you crossed over?

Gilda (looking toward Erik and exhaling sharply): Didn’t we talk about this already?

Me (in mock resignation): Oh, okay. Fine!

Gilda: It was basically about the religion thing—that you didn’t have to take the correct steps to get to the pearly gates.

Me: Okay.

Oops.

Erik: Well, did you gain any insights on your personal life?

Me: Ah!

Way to help me save face, Erik.

Gilda: Yes! That I totally undermined myself. What I saw as pleasing was actually suffocating the energy inside my body.

Me: Mm.

(Pause)

Me: Were you here to learn anything else other than what you’ve already said?

(Long pause as Jamie listens)

Jamie: She’s talking about how to have acceptance of being so unique.

Gilda: Just because you’re created differently and your perspective is different and you’re wittier and faster than most doesn’t mean that you have to separate from the community and ostracize yourself—even though I did do that.

Me: Do you think you were here to teach anything?

Gilda: When I was human, I definitely would have told you that my job was to make you laugh.

Me: Okay, but now, looking back?

Gilda (laughing): My job is to make you laugh!

Gilda, Jamie and I laugh.

Me: Do you have any regrets, Gilda?

Gilda: Yeah, I do regret that I couldn’t look at myself and enjoy that body for what it was. I really regret that because I was beautiful, and I never caught on to that.

Me: Yeah. You were, Gilda. You were beautiful inside and out.

Gilda (doing a little curtsey): Thank you.

Me: What do you think you’re proudest accomplishment was, and has that changed since you’ve crossed over?

Jamie listens for a long time.

Jamie: Um, she lost me. She just said like a thousand words. Can we try that again, Gilda?

Erik (laughing): You totally missed the joke, Jamie!

Jamie giggles.

Jamie: What’s the question again? Let’s start over.

I repeat it.

Gilda: No, it hasn’t changed since I’ve crossed over, and my proudest accomplishment was the work I did—the comedy on TV and my Broadway success, the fact that I was able to suspend people’s beliefs when they were being entertained by my characters.

Me: What do you mean by “suspend their beliefs?”

Gilda: From that moment in time when you are soaked up into my story, my character, my show, you’re not thinking about yourself. You have a moment of suspended belief.

Me: Yes, and it probably helped you suspend your own beliefs about yourself, because your audience was showing you love.

Gilda: Yeah.

Me: Okay, what life do you think most affected your life as Gilda Radner?

Jamie (to Erik, laughing): Is this a running joke, Erik?

Me: Share with the rest of the class, you two!

Jamie: Yeah, I swear ever since he and Freddie Mercury teased me about his being a baboon in a previous life, I don’t know if they’re being serious.

Me: Oh, yeah. That was the stinky orangutan joke.

Jamie: So, he was telling Gilda that they could make it a joke if they wanted to, but she’s not biting. I knew that Erik was kind of messing around. She’s showing me a life as a man, and, um, a Greek man. Kind of a large nose, slim physique—almost looks like a starved physique.

Gilda: We would run races on foot—bare foot—

Me: What time period are we talking about?

Gilda: It was before Christ—B.C. And I was a really good runner, and I often felt like the less I ate, the lighter and faster I’d be.

Me: Oh, okay.

Gilda: I thought maybe I could run into being invisible.

Me: Oh, Gilda.

Gilda: I’ve had lives after that. It wasn’t the last one, but it was the challenge of the physical body that struck me—‘How could I use my body as a tool? Not just the mind—the physical body, too.’ And I think it turned into a bit of an obsession.

Me: Yeah.

Gilda: And that’s what sort of carried through in this life—it shaped me greatly; it was to what I meant to do.

Me: How did you use your body as a tool this last lifetime?

Gilda: As a comedian. Physical comedy.

Me: Oh, of course! Okay. Given your newfound perspective, is there any advice or messages you have for us?

Jamie listens, and then bursts out laughing.

Jamie: She just yelled out in that same tone she came in with representing Detroit, “Shut the fuck up, already!”

Me (laughing): Oh, my god!

Gilda: If I had to speak to every person on Earth individually, I’d say, ‘Shut the fuck up, already.’

We all laugh.

Me: Why?

Gilda: People need to know why they’re opening their mouths in the first place, and if they can’t tell me why, then I want them to shut the fuck up already.

Me: Well, why do you think people open their mouths without knowing why?

Gilda: Defense. Defense mechanisms, comfort; they’re protecting their egos; they don’t want to look stupid. The list goes on.

Me: Ironically, when we open our mouths without thinking, that’s when we look the stupidest! Erik, do you have any more questions for Ms. Radner?

Erik: Nope, I think that does it!

Me: Okay. Do you have any messages for your husband, Gene Wilder?

Jamie: They were married?

Me: I think so.

Jamie listens to Gilda.

Jamie (tenderly): Wow, they were married. I had no idea.

Gilda: Gene is the love of my life.

Me: Aw.

Gilda: I was so grateful to have the opportunity to work with him, because it was love at first sight for me. I pursued him. I was married, and I pursued him. I had to get divorced so I could have that man!

Me: Aw, so sweet! Well, thank you, Gilda, for your time. I appreciate it.

Jamie (giggling): She’s waving kind of big and does a few bows and curtseys.

Me: I can just see her in my mind’s eye. Oh my gosh.

 

Here’s the bird I always here in my backyard that seems to be saying, “Jamie, Jamie, Jamie, Jamie.” I thought if was an Ovenbird, but now I have my doubts. Any ornithology buffs care to give it a shot? Otherwise, I’ll just call it the “Jamie Bird.”

THE JAMIE BIRD