Yoko Ono’s poignant memorial for John Lennon: “He is everywhere”
The legacy that John Lennon left behind was complicated. He’d be the first to say that he was far from a perfect person—a belligerent, controlling bully on one end and an overly sensitive man-child clinging to Yoko Ono on the other. However, arguably, the only reason we know that level of grotty detail about the man’s actions is because he was honest about them later in life and tried to atone for them.
It is one of the many reasons his death in 1980 is still such a tragedy. This was a man actively trying to improve himself, who possibly had the best years of his life ripped away not only from him but his family, too. Lennon left behind his beloved wife, Yoko Ono, and two sons, Julian and Sean. Now, before Lennon’s murder, they were already three of the most scrutinised people on the planet. Ono especially.
People often forget that Ono is human at the best of times, and this was undoubtedly not the best of times. She now had to navigate losing her husband of eleven years and partner of twelve while also explaining this to a five-year-old child while she was arguably the most famous woman on the planet. One of her first acts was to decide that there would be no funeral. Instead, she communicated to the world in a press release that, “Later in the week, we will set the time for a silent vigil to pray for his soul. We invite you to participate wherever you are at the time.”
The time was decided upon as 2pm local time, and thus, the method of grieving was also decided. Ten minutes of silence, wherever you were in the world at that time. The news broadcasts covering the vigils at the time are truly haunting. A reported 20,000 people at Liverpool’s St George’s Hall. 50,000 in Central Park. Joined together at a moment of almost surreal grief. What inspired this moment, though?
Bob Gruen, photographer and family friend of the Lennons, put forth his interpretation of why in the 20/20 episode John Lennon: His Life, Legacy, Last Days: “When Yoko had to tell Sean that his father wasn’t coming home, that he was dead, Sean said, ‘Well, now he’s everywhere.’ I think that might have been one of the things that inspired Yoko to offer ten minutes of silence anywhere in the world, everywhere in the world because John was now everywhere and now, he is everywhere.”
Gruen is our only source for Sean Lennon saying this. However, it is exactly the message of peaceful unity that Ono was trying to spread in the immediate aftermath of such a horrific tragedy. One that didn’t contribute to the media circus that had harangued the Ono-Lennon clan for a decade by that point. One that spread the word to all who could feel it that John’s memory and message were all we had now. However, that had always been enough.
I’m not going to lecture those put off by Lennon’s actions and say that he’s automatically deserving of respect because of the music. That’s a larger conversation for another time. Yoko Ono, on the other hand, absolutely is deserving of respect. If nothing else, for how she took a time of incalculable personal grief and still tried to do as she had always done. Make the world a better, more understanding place despite it.
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