Dear Lady Day

If Billie Holiday were alive today, this is a letter I would write to her:

Dear Lady Day


I know they hurt you, Lady.
They cut you to the bone.
I hear it in the words you sing,
a chill is in your moan.

Your burden is too heavy,
too much for one to bear.
Allow your friends to help,
please, let them show they care.

Be guided by your mirror,
the beauty there to see.
Your bell-like magic voice,
an instrument to set you free.

You lead the way for others
with your courage and your pride.
You'll always be remembered,
but, never satisfied.

You're always ready for a fight,
to give your foes their due.
The one you never can defeat,
dear Lady Day, is you.

Note: Regarded by many as the best jazz singer the world has ever seen. Jazz critic and friend, Leonard Feather says of her, "Billie Holiday's voice was the voice of living intensity, of soul in the true sense of that greatly abused word. As a human being she was sweet, sour, kind, mean, generous, profane, lovable, and impossible, and nobody who knew her expects to see anyone quite like her ever again."

Her personal life was at the opposite end of the spectrum. Born to teenaged parents, her father seldom around, she was often left in the care of abusive relatives. Billie began working at the age of six scrubbing floors and porches in Baltimore. By the young age of ten she had been sexually, physically and racially abused. This abuse continued throughout her life. She coped the best she could, dying at the age of 44 from cirrhosis of the liver.