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#CarrieOnForever: A Year Since We Lost Carrie Fisher

Billie Lourd Remembers Her Mom With Trip to Norway

By Christina St-JeanPublished 6 years ago 5 min read
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I took #CarrieFisher's death hard, as so many people did. December 27th, 2016.

It wasn't until I became an adult that I gained true appreciation for Carrie Fisher. When I was a kid, she was just Princess Leia from Star Wars, and at around ten years old and a staunch tomboy (I prefer the term "strong female" now, thanks), I just did not get her appeal. In looking back, I suppose that it only makes sense that I didn't really "get" Carrie Fisher or her significance to women then—I was, after all, only ten, and had only gotten into Star Wars within the last two years before that, having been only four when A New Hope first came out and shook the stratosphere.

She was terrific, as we know, in Empire Strikes Back, but I really started to realize just how cool she was when she mounted a rescue attempt as a bounty hunter in Return Of The Jedi. I mean, come on! The fact that Princess Leia would dress up like an alien bounty hunter to rescue her man Han Solo—who was also pretty cool, in my books—was just amazing to me. For her to later hop on a speeder bike with #LukeSkywalker, who we'd just discovered was her brother, and go chasing after the bad guys through a gorgeous, lush forest was pretty awesome, too.

I didn't fall in love with her writing until I'd seen Postcards From The Edge. At the time, I'd just graduated high school and had no idea that Carrie Fisher was a writer as well, or that Postcards From The Edge was actually semi-autobiographical. It was also my first real exposure to how amazing Meryl Streep was, but that's another story.

Anyways, Postcards captivated me. I remember thinking that if even a quarter of what was shown was true to life, Carrie Fisher had been through the wringer and back again. I went out and got the book shortly after seeing the movie and the book just popped. The writing was tight, the dialogue fairly crackled with electricity, and it just added a whole new dimension to what I understood of Carrie Fisher. It was also my first introduction to the idea of just how flawed our heroes could be; I'd had no idea, to that point, that she'd struggled quite regularly with addictions of various stripes, or with mental illness, and as someone who was dealing with a recovering alcoholic father, it was refreshing to see her discuss addictions so openly. It was not a secret anymore, and I respected her for that.

Now, as an adult with kids of my own, I have a whole new respect for Carrie Fisher. I'd seen her in several movies (and still laugh about me not quite believing it was her in When Harry Met Sally), still treasured her writing as a writer myself, and found new enjoyment in her performances as Princess Leia. When The Force Awakens bowed in 2015, I had been thrilled to learn that she was General Leia, as though somehow, Carrie Fisher herself had been deemed worthy of a promotion. Really, she should have been, as the steadfast advocate for mental health challenges and understanding addictions as she had been.

In fact, as a high school teacher who deals with kids struggling with their own mental health on an increasingly regular basis, I find myself listening to things Carrie Fisher has said with regards to mental illness and trying, in my own way, to show that there should be no shame or embarrassment regarding it. She was living proof that even though mental illness was serious business and should be taken as such, you could still be successful on your own terms, talk about it, and get on with the business of living your best life possible.

I somehow knew, when news came that she'd taken ill on that flight last year, that the outcome would not be what we'd hoped. I had a nauseating gut feeling that the addictions Carrie Fisher had struggled with for most of her adult life would ultimately claim her. Since then, though, I find myself trying to embrace one of the biggest truths that I learned in reading some of her work: "Stay afraid but do it anyway."

I have that quote emblazoned on my arm, and it's been a great source of discussion among my high school students (once I explain context—"do it anyway" is not about risky behaviors, in my view). Carrie Fisher was a one of a kind woman and when I read what her daughter #BillieLourd did to honor the one year anniversary of her death, I smiled. It was something that her mother would have been proud of, for sure.

Billie Lourd, her dad Bryan, and his husband, Bruce Bozzi, took a trip to Norway to see the Northern Lights, which Fisher apparently had a lifelong fascination with. She wrote an article for Port, detailing a trip she and some friends took to see the Northern Lights in Yellowknife, Canada, back in 2013, and in her tribute to her mother, Billie Lourd quoted that article.

According to Us, Billie Lourd posted on Instagram that “My momby had an otherworldly obsession with the northern lights, but I never got to see them with her. We journeyed to northern Norway to see if we might ‘see the heavens lift up her dark skirts and flash her dazzling privates across [our] unworthy irises.’ And she did. I love you times infinity.”

Oh—and the other wonderful tribute? Billie Lourd remembered her mom exactly the way Carrie Fisher had wanted, all those years ago. In the emoticons that her mom frequently used on her own Twitter feed, she wrote, "She drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra." It was something Carrie Fisher had said many times about her own demise; she'd said that, regardless of how she actually died, she wanted to be remembered exactly the way Lourd quoted it.

While it's hard to believe it's already been a year since Carrie Fisher's passing, I continue to embrace her enduring lessons about life and mental health, as well as her body of work. She was an incredible force, one that continues to be felt across the Star Wars universe.

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About the Creator

Christina St-Jean

I'm a high school English and French teacher who trains in the martial arts and works towards continuous self-improvement.

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