“So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it. Thank you.” — Willy Wonka (played by Gene Wilder)

Art can be immortal so why do artists have to die? With Gene Wilder’s recent death, I am asking myself, how do we let go of artists that have left in us profound experiences? Is that even possible?

My five year old mind still wonders if it is possible that Gene Wilder could forever be Willy Wonka? I wish with all my heart that Wilder could be forever frozen like a tableau at that point in his artistic career. There, he will never age, as most mortals do. For me, Wilder as Willy Wonka epitomized the essence of great acting: comedy, mystery, and a bit of devilish surprise co-mingled in a world of fantasy. It is not your everyday fantasy too where you visualize some odd place to travel to and then forget about it. It is the kind of fantasy that helped me build all future ones because Wilder made my imagination possible.

Quite frankly, it has been a wretched year in grief for the death of the beloved artist and it does not get easier — the list just gets longer. Bowie, Prince, Rickman, Wilder are just some of the well-known artists who have died. There is no uniquely beautiful or graceful way of stating that someone is dead, especially not your favorite actor, musician, dancer, and so on. How do you say in a posed and peaceful way, “Bowie is dead,” “Prince is dead,” “Rickman and Wilder are all dead.”

For me, death occurs when the physical form to which you saw, heard, experienced that person is no longer possible using the same apparatus of perceptual processes you use for those living. What it tells me is that you will not hear, see, experience another album, concert or film with that person. You will not be able to celebrate the future of their artistry by comparing and contrasting past works with that ‘future’ work.

Death takes away a lot, but not everything. It cannot take away the image of that artist at work–that did not die. In fact, it still lives and thrives within. What if it signaled a transformation, one in which you ‘trade’ positions with your beloved artist and take on those attributes that inspired you in the first place? For example, it is not that I will transform into Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, per se. It is that the intrigue he inspired in me regarding imagination will continue to inform my passion for imagination and creativity. I can feel Wilder’s interpretation of Wonka now as I hear the lyrics of “Pure Imagination” within me:

Come with me and we’ll be
In a world of pure imagination
Take a look and you’ll see
Into your imagination
We’ll begin with a spin
Traveling in a world of my creation
Look and see
We’ll defy explanation

To die is a kind of cosmic reversal. Death defies logic and requires one to let go of your ‘normal’ way of perceiving to re-imagine that this beloved artist is alive within you. If alive feels impossible, then, you can think of it as a constant flow of inspiration in you. Is it possible that this is the greatest masterpiece of the dead artist? That the wealth of their artistic expression now resides, eternally, in you.