What phrase comes to mind when you think of Justin Bieber, who’s married and 27? The phrase that comes to my mind (and I acknowledge it’s not as current as it could be) is “obnoxious party animal to whom much wealth and media attention have been given.”
For what it’s worth, I’ve despised the idea of Bieber from the get-go (i.e., the start of the Obama administration). Here we are 11 years later, and his name still does the trick.
The gist of “Ghost,” a just-released Bieber song, is that Justin misses his smiling, recently deceased grandfather “more than life.” And so he chooses to celebrate the fragile, all-too-briefly-enjoyed gift of life with his hat-wearing, Tom Ford-glasses-wearing grandma, played by Diane Keaton.
Has a grandson ever melted down this much over the death of a grandparent? If there’s one thing that was drilled into my early childhood, it was the unfortunate fact that grandparents pass on sooner rather than later as a rule. Even the most naive grandsons are acquainted with this sad inevitability, and generally respond with a nodding acceptance.
I’ve never once heard or read about a grandson being, like, gutslammed and shattered to pieces by the passing of a grandparent. Saddened and grief-struck but not decimated. It hurts but you know it’s coming, like leaves turning yellow and falling from trees.
