We all know this photo – I call it “The Kiss,” although there’s all sorts of names for it, none of which seem to be official or not. It’s an iconic image of celebration and victory.
For what it’s worth I like the photograph, because it invokes a lot of positive emotion for me. Victory, celebration, joy, jubilation, and the romantic in me eats this kind of stuff up. I like that there’s a gigantic statue of it out in San Diego, and I smirk approvingly whenever it’s paid homage to, but it’s not something I’ve really given a whole lot of thought to otherwise.
It’s silly for me to think it, but I forget that World War II was actually a realistic distance in time ago. It’s stretching the boundaries of average life expectancy, but it’s still been “just” 70 years when this photograph was taken. We have people living into their 80s and 90s, with some ancient Chinese sifus living into their 100s. A part of me didn’t even think to wonder if the people in the photograph were still alive today. I suppose I assumed they were dead for a while, after all they were young adults back at the conclusion of World War II.
I can’t speak for the woman in the photo, but up until a week ago, the sailor in the photograph was alive, and just recently passed. He was 86 years old. The thought that he was still alive up until recently kind of blows my mind. Here’s a guy that became a living icon back in 1945, when it may as well have been the Stone Age compared to the technological advances of today. Throughout the rest of his life, he witnessed first hand, as the world evolved from so many aspects. He saw politics, people, automobiles change and evolve. Cars transform from gigantic carburetor muscle machines into spaceships that can literally go twice as fast. And of course, let us not forget the rise and evolution of computers, the internet, and the symbiotic reliance of all of this technology.
This man could have been pounding rivets into a vessel that’s now probably in a museum back then, and could very well have been watching television on a Roku streaming box, or holding an iPad to read news or look at imagery a month ago. Seriously, I actually have qualms with wrapping my head around such a simple concept of one man’s longevity.
Regardless, the passing of this sailor is somewhat notable to me, because although I didn’t give it a thought just a day ago, I do find it sad that a living icon is no longer with us. I can’t imagine it’s considered tragic by any means, as it sounds like he lived a long a fulfilling life, but it’s still sad because death is sad.
Thankfully, in another sense, he’ll always live forever, as part of what I consider to be one of the most beautiful images in American history.
