Just in time for Father's Day

Earlier this week, I was delighted to read a short blurb in the newspaper giving me an update of exactly what's on Yoko Ono's mind these days.

Turns out, just in time for Father's Day, she revealed that on the fateful night of John Lennon's death, he could have possibly avoided the bullets that were waiting for him outside the Dakota, courtesy of Mark Chapman. According to her story, when given a choice between grabbing a bite to eat and heading home after they finished their recording session that evening, John Lennon chose to skip the meal so he wouldn't miss seeing his son, Sean, before he went to sleep. And that made the difference in whether he would live or die if you believe her story. Perhaps Chapman would have given up his watch had Lennon and Ono been detained by a prolonged dinner, and the evening would have passed without incident.

As if that weren't enough to make Sean Lennon want to regret being alive, she had more to share. After a two-year separation, Ono and Lennon reconciled in 1975. Shortly after that, she became pregnant with Sean. As a future mother of the year, she turned to Lennon and asked him if he wanted the baby. Apparently, it made no difference to her whether or not she carried the child to term or aborted it. As she put it, "I thought I should let John decide whether to keep it or not. We'd just got back together and I became pregnant very soon, and I didn't know if it was the right moment to have a child. I didn't want to burden him with something he didn't want."

It's immaterial to me that she was conflicted about the pregnancy or that she wasn't sure she wanted to "burden" Lennon with a child. None of that is the point, really.

What is amazing and disturbing to me about her latest appearance in the news is that she very publically told her only son two things:

1.) you're the reason your father was killed that night; he was coming home at that hour only because of you; to make sure he could help tuck you in.

2.) giving birth to you was something I felt ambivilent about; and if your father hadn't wanted me to go one with the pregnancy, I was ready to end it.

If this weren't so sad I'd be amused by it. Why are we still reading about Yoko Ono anyway? Why hasn't she faded from our view? I don't get it. And especially this particular story. It uplifts no one as near as I could tell.