Dear Joan Rivers,

Dear Joan,

With you, we lost another great one.

You had brass, like no man’s business. In an industry where skirts were the secretaries, you claimed the stage and you owned it. You spoke the truth. People don’t want to hear the truth. Because it makes them uncomfortable. It makes them take a quick look in the mirror and see what’s really going on here.

You were our mirror.

Whether making people laugh on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson or on the Red Carpet, you said those things, those prickly, surprising, unforgettable things that we all wished we had the hutzpah to say. But we, especially we women, we were raised to be polite, to be comforting, to be accommodating. To watch ourselves because egos are fragile and it’s our gender’s responsibility to protect those egos.

You wouldn’t have any of it and you didn’t have any of it.

To those easily offended by your directness, well, today being offended has become a sport. Because it’s easy to play the victim. It’s easy to whine. It’s easy to complain.

Again, you wouldn’t have any of it.

When you complained, it was it was rooted in the worry of where your next gig was and why you had so many open dates on your calender. And then you’d quickly fill that calender with bookings, ensuring that businesswoman in you never stopped. And this is why so many of us women will miss you most. Yes, of course, there’s the laughter. The fashion comments so sharp that they could slice through a Ginsu knife set.

What you did for us, businesswomen, Joan, was you showed us how to win. No excuses. No apologies. No hesitation.

When you got your own night talk show, Carson stopped speaking to you. But, decades later, when you won the very first Celebrity Apprentice, crushing your competitors, many half your age, no one could stop speaking about you.  You won because you knew the business. Scratch that. You ran the business. And no one ran the business of show business like you.

Talk shows, red carpets, concerts, fashion lines, jewelry collections, reality tv, books, social media. You did it all. And you did with the brass of a million.

Just last night my cousin Jennifer, also a massive fan, pointed out to me that you, too, were the daughter of two Russian Jewish immigrants. When I looked up your family’s story, I also learned that your middle name is my first name. Spelled a little different. But the name is still the name.

And, so, it is in your death that I find my life even closer connected to yours.

Jews acquired that name after Alexander the Great spared a Jewish village and the head Rabbi said “We will name our children after you.”  In Greek, Alexsandra means “Helper and defender of mankind.” You defended us from our own inner darkness and you helped us get through the highs and lows of life.

Thank you, Joan Alexandra Molinsky, for defining the business of laughter.

Photo: Google Images