Lady Blue Eyes

by Barbara Sinatra

  Surprisingly, the year I lost Frank ended up being a very good year. To my delight, Bobby married his bride in June in a private ceremony in New York. He was forty-seven years old, so I guessed he must have really listened to me in Neuchâtel all those years earlier when I’d told him not to marry too young.

  Then on December 19, 1998, my first grandchild—Carina Blakeley Marx—was born. I couldn’t help but think of her as a gift from above. Just as I was mourning the passing of the man I’d loved more than anything in the world, a new life was created, reminding me of the wonderful continuity of things. Carina is a treasure who continues to surprise and delight me as she grows into a beautiful young girl with a mind of her own. Frank would have been so enormously proud.

  Feeling broody, I acquired my own new baby—a handsome Cavalier King Charles spaniel who goes by the name of Sir Winston Sinatra. He is my constant companion and my closest friend. A reminder of happier days with Miss Wiggles and Caroline, he brings me great joy. As with darling Carina, I only wish Frank could have known him, but then I think that maybe he does. I have never been one to dwell on the idea of an afterlife, but something happened after Frank died that did make me wonder. My friend Kathy Hilton (mother of Paris and Nicky) called me up one day after she’d been to see a psychic. The medium apparently told her that Frank had a message for me, which was to “look for the hummingbird” whenever I needed a sign. I was quite taken aback by what she said because only the previous day, when I had been in a quandary about some important decision, I’d asked Frank aloud to “show me a sign.” Also, Frank and I had always loved hummingbirds. We had watched a pair make a nest in a cactus right outside our bedroom window at the Compound soon after we were married. We had glowed with parental pride when the eggs hatched and the babies finally learned how to fly away from the cats waiting patiently at the bottom of the cactus.

  A day or so after Kathy’s call to me, a hummingbird suddenly appeared on the terrace of my Los Angeles apartment. It remained there feeding on the flowers for several minutes as I watched. Living in the penthouse, I had never before seen a hummingbird that high up, and I was astounded. Now, it seems to me, whenever I think of Frank and want some sort of sign from him that I’m making the right decision about something, or to know that he loves me, he sends a hummingbird or two to lift my heart.

  Not that I am unhappy—far from it. Frank was the driving force of my life and we lived fast and hard, so it was a big readjustment to the pace without him. Fortunately, I like being alone and have always enjoyed my own company. As Frank used to say, “I don’t need any more friends,” and it has never once occurred to me to get married again. Anyway, where would I go after Sinatra?

  I still have the children’s center to worry about and the annual golf tournament to raise much-needed funds. Having put my name to the project all those years ago, I can never walk away from it, and I have no intention of doing so. I just want to make sure that the center and all its wonderful work lives on. I am also involved with the many hospital wings, college halls, clinics, and schools Frank helped fund over the course of his sixty-year career. Tony Bennett and his wife, Susan Benedetto, built a school in Frank’s name in Queens a few years after he died, so that is another part of my husband’s legacy I am involved with. The Frank Sinatra School of the Arts is in Tony’s hometown of Astoria and offers courses in art, dance, music, drama, and film. Tony is the singer Frank handed the baton to; there is no one else around to touch him, and his kind and good spirit shows in his music. He’d always admired Frank so much, and he wanted to do something that he knew Frank would approve of in his name. It is a wonderful facility.

  Having spent years listening to Frank taking the time and trouble to call up older women widowed and alone, such as Susie Hornblow, I suddenly found myself one of their number. Only I didn’t have a Francis Albert to call me up and make me smile every Saturday night or to send me flowers on Mother’s Day. What I began to notice, though, was how many of our male friends stepped into that role—surprising me with telephone calls, visits, and gifts. R. J. Wagner doesn’t go two weeks without calling me; neither does Steve Lawrence or Vince Kickerillo (who confessed that Frank asked him to keep an eye on me). Greg Peck used to call all the time until we lost him five years after Frank died. Roger Moore still calls from Europe. George Schlatter picks up the phone just to say hello. Don Rickles rings to crack some new joke. Kenny Venturi, Frankie Randall, Jerry Vale, and so many of those who first met Frank way back when still make an effort to keep me from being too lonely.

  Knowing of my lifelong weakness for candy ever since my gummy bean days at Blakeley’s General Store, Quincy Jones sends me delicious heart-shaped ginger cookies every Valentine’s Day. Others drop into my weekly card games if they’re in town. I love to see and hear from them all. There is nothing I would rather listen to than “Frank stories,” for—like all those getting on in years—I now get my greatest pleasure from feeding on the memories of the remarkable life I have led as Frank’s wife.

  EPILOGUE

  With my granddaughter, Carina, at the beach house in Malibu.

  COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

  The Best Is Yet to Come

  Every year, on the anniversary of my husband’s death, I go to the desert cemetery where he is buried and lay some flowers before offering up a quiet prayer. It is always an emotional visit, as is the one I make every year on his birthday to the Good Shepherd Church to light a candle.

  Each time I go to the Desert Memorial Park, where I will one day be laid alongside my darling husband, I have to smile because his devoted fans have usually gotten there before me. Frank’s grave is one of the easiest to spot among the hundreds in the lush grass carpet. Placed lovingly around his marker are miniature bottles of Jack Daniel’s, packets of Camel cigarettes, his favorite candies, posies of flowers, and tiny American flags. One day we will be side by side once more, just as we were for almost thirty years. I guess on my grave people might place candy. Someone asked me what my marker might say, and I thought about it for a moment before laughing and suggesting, “Me too!”

  Our friends and family are all buried in that cemetery, so I shall be in the best company; it’ll be just like the good old days. So many of those we had the most fun with over the years are gone now, along with the men in my life—Bobby’s father, Joe, and Zeppo. I’ve outlived them all, and here I am bearing witness to the lives we led and the laughs we had along the way. I think it’s probably the laughter I miss the most—especially Frank’s jackpot laugh, which was music to my ears.

  I am rarely alone when I visit Frank’s grave. Photographers and fans often hang around, respectfully keeping their distance as they watch me tell my sweetheart how much I miss him. I sometimes wonder what they think of me, this woman in her eighties keeping vigil for her dead husband. Few know where I came from or how I got there. They know nothing of my life before Frank or how rich it became once I met him. If they only knew the places I’ve been, the things I’ve seen, the people I’ve met on my journey. That was some candy jar! Instead, they watch and they wait, nod a polite hello, and as I am driven away, I see them step forward to better examine my flowers and note. There can never be any privacy for me at Frank’s grave.

  Although he is dead and buried, Francis Albert Sinatra touched the lives of so many, across all generations, and will always live on in people’s hearts. The man with the electrifying personality said once that he wanted to be remembered as someone who had “a wonderful time living life.” Well, I too had the most wonderful time, living almost thirty years of that remarkable life as Frank’s lover, his best friend, and his bride.

  He also said he wished for those who loved him a thousand times more than the joys he’d known in his life. “I wish everybody in the world a lot of sweet things and pleasant dreams,” he added, “and soft touching, hugging, and kissing.” I was fortunate enough to have had all of that and a thousand times more as Lady Blue Eyes, for which I am eternally grateful.

  S
leep warm, Frank. Your memory will always keep me warm, and they can’t take that away from me …