Might as Well Laugh About It Now (18 page)

As I said on
Dancing with the Stars
when asked if I thought I had a chance to win from the call-in votes: The show has 25 million viewers, and 22 million are Osmonds!

However, as I kicked off my flip-flops to walk through the airport metal detector (I wore sandals for months after
Dancing with the Stars
, trying to help the skin grow back on my feet), I wasn’t thinking about the 25 million viewers who watch
Dancing with the Stars
, or the 7 million who watch Oprah each day. I found myself thinking about two people only—two people who are finally together again. My heart was so full of admiration for the two who were somehow responsible for every person boarding that private airplane to return to Salt Lake City. Whatever each Osmond has become individually has bloomed from the legacy these two built together. I was overwhelmed with missing them both: my mother and father, Olive and George Osmond.

It had been the most bittersweet week of my life. On Monday, I was so excited to perform a
Dancing with the Stars
tribute to my parents, to one of their favorite songs, “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” My dance partner, Jonathan Roberts, and I dressed in the military style that my dad wore when he first courted my mom by taking her to a Tommy Dorsey big-band dance. They were so good together that they would often win dance competitions, which supplemented their income in their first year of marriage.

He loved that I was doing a show featuring ballroom dancing. As I always did, I called him an hour before the show aired to make sure he was watching. He always was.

The next morning, Daddy got up, took a shower, got dressed, straightened up his room, lay back on his bed, and covered himself with an afghan I had knitted for him years before. He smiled and passed sweetly away at age ninety. He was supposed to be with us on Oprah’s show, celebrating our fifty years in show business, but I think he knew his earthly work was done. As I told Oprah, “My dad wanted to go dance with my mother again. They are Dancing ‘in’ the Stars.”

I ran my fingertips through Abby’s silky baby hair. I thought about how the next day she would go to my daddy’s funeral with me. As sad as Abby would be about saying good-bye to Grandpa, I knew that within a year or so her memories of time spent with him would fade. At her tender age, her growing mind expands by the minute with all the new discoveries and knowledge that will carry her into her future. One day, along with all of God’s children, she will be the hope of the future of the world, too. That didn’t seem possible as I watched her, flapping her arms and perching on one leg, like a flamingo with a Cherry Twizzler hanging from her mouth, crazy for a good laugh. My brother Wayne looked on with a grin of approval. And I thought, “Ah, yes . . . the Osmond legacy lives on.”

My heart was rushed by an emotional whirlwind from accepting that I no longer had my parents, and from an awareness of a new place I would now fill in the family, the matriarch of the Osmond men.

When I felt I could finally explain the Osmond family to Abby, she had completely lost interest and was kneeling on the floor, whispering secrets that were obviously hysterically funny to her cousin Bella, my brother Jimmy’s youngest child. As I watched the two little girls giggling together, I could feel the warm presence of my parents. It was like they were with my brothers and me the entire time, in the same way that they had told each of us that God is watching over all of His children. I could feel them lovingly watching over their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, all together. I would have loved to have been Daddy’s little girl and my mother’s only daughter again, if only for a moment, but I knew they were comforting me. I could almost hear them whispering in my ear: “This is the cycle of life, Marie. Let in the joy.”

Borrowed Bling

The only photo of the necklace I’ll never forget.

I’m a woman who feels something is missing if I’m not wearing jewelry. Before I leave the house I always check to make sure that my nose and forehead don’t shine but that something on my neck and ears does.
Bling!
I never go to a pharmaceutical counter for a mood elevator; I go to a jewelry counter. A twenty-eight-dollar pair of earrings is bliss when you’re having a bad day.

I’m pretty certain it was Elizabeth Taylor who launched the bling competition between celebrities. It was her red-carpet walk at the 1970 Oscars, when she wore a 69-carat Cartier diamond pendant that had the world asking, “What violet eyes?” Nothing within five city blocks could take the attention away from Liz Taylor ’s ice. I was about ten years old that year and pretty impressionable, too. I have to wonder if Liz’s megadia mond planted the seed of my own fascination with all things that sparkle.

Today, every Hollywood red carpet is like a showcase for famous jewelry designers, who invite the stars who are attending to “borrow” some gems. And many of us, with the possible exception of Oprah, who probably never even borrows library books, usually do. It’s pretty fun to wear forty thousand dollars of Harry Win ston, Chanel, or Tiffany diamonds on each earlobe and a cool quarter million in precious gems around your neck. Of course, the possibility of a piece of borrowed jewelry falling off and your not realizing it is incredibly nerve-racking. Unless it’s heavy enough for you to tell it’s on without looking, you can end up touching your ears and neckline more than a third-base coach at the World Series. Besides that, the jeweler bodyguards follow you everywhere. I saw a pair of black men’s shoes outside of my stall in the ladies’ room at the Emmy Awards. Hey!

Just like the World Series, it’s a relief to have it locked up until the next season.

A Saudi princess once gave me the most valuable piece of jewelry I had ever owned. It wasn’t really a gift, per se, it was more like a “get.”

Donny and I were headlining along with our brothers at the Hilton in Las Vegas. Every show was a sellout due to the popularity of our TV variety show. Being a young girl, I had no idea who the numerous so-called important people were that we were introduced to each evening, everyone from Vegas high rollers to film stars to foreign dignitaries. The reason it didn’t faze us was that our parents taught us that every person we meet is equal in importance in God’s eyes. It didn’t matter if the person had just stepped out of a Rolls-Royce in the City of Light or a pickup truck at the Iowa State Fair.

As a teenager, I understood that every person was equal, but I could see that every piece of jewelry was not! I spotted her gorgeous necklace the moment I met the Saudi princess, who was a big fan of our variety show.

Positioned perfectly in the clavicle indentation in her neck was a stunning four-leaf-clover pendant. It was 18-carat gold with a 1-carat diamond directly in the center of four leaves paved with diamond chips. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.

“Your necklace is absolutely breathtaking,” I told her. “I love it!”

What really left me gasping for air was when she replied, “Then you must have it.”

With great casualness, as if passing along a string of plastic Mardi Gras beads, she reached up and unhooked her necklace and dropped it into my hand.

I’m pretty sure my mouth was insisting that I couldn’t accept it, though I doubt I was very convincing. I have no memory of chasing her down to give it back after she smiled and walked away.

My first thought was, “This is really mine!” followed by what seemed incomprehensible to me: “Imagine having so much money that you can give away diamond necklaces.”

That four-leaf-clover necklace became my prized possession. I never had it appraised, but I’m certain it was worth thousands. More important than that, it made me feel like a million dollars. I wore it everywhere and with everything, except my show costumes. Every night, before I went onstage, I would take it off and put it in a little drawer in the dressing room. It was the last thing I took off and the first thing I put back on after the show.

One night, while I was onstage, someone decided to clean out the dressing room. Literally. When I pulled open the little drawer, the necklace was gone. The possession that I thought I would never part with had parted with me!

I tried to apply the advice my mother had always given us about items that had gone missing. She would always say: “I guess they needed it more than we do.” Her wisdom wasn’t working this time. I couldn’t have been angrier. Visions of my necklace being pawned by someone who didn’t care about what it meant to me stormed through my mind. Four-leaf clovers are for luck. This one was obviously bad luck.

I was furious for days, observing every person backstage with total suspicion. Who was it? With about forty people involved in every show, on top of all the people who worked at the hotel, it would be impossible to ever know. Over and over I thought, “How dare someone take my diamond necklace? It was mine.”

Then, unexpectedly, a thought tugged at my conscience: “You first took the necklace from her.” Even though I didn’t steal the necklace, I realized that I did take the necklace from the princess, never knowing if it held any special meaning for her. I never even asked. I wanted it, so I rationalized that she must be so wealthy that she could let go of her necklace and never miss it. Whoever took the necklace from me may have thought the same way. “Oh, she’s a celebrity. She can get whatever she wants.”

Although this thought didn’t take away the pain of losing the necklace, it did lessen the anger and blame that had been left in its place. I was never going to get the necklace back, but I could tell that the bad feelings would stick to me forever unless I really let them go.

I had to let them go.

I’ve been given and even bought my share of fine jewelry since losing that four-leaf clover. I appreciate it, but I stay away from becoming attached. Diamonds are the hardest natural substance found on the earth and they represent eternal love, but in the realm of eternity, they’re really just stones.

I will admit, when the occasion arises I still love to parade some loaner platinum on the red carpet, but that’s for the movies and award shows, not for real life. I can’t spend forty thousand dollars on a pair of earrings. Come on! That’s a week’s worth of groceries in my family!