"I think of John every day. I do try to block it, but December 8th is not the only day I think of him"
About this Quote
Grief, in Yoko Ono's telling, is not an anniversary; it's a permanent background process you learn to live beside. The line starts with a blunt admission of frequency - "every day" - then immediately complicates it: "I do try to block it". That tiny confession is where the quote does its real work. Ono isn't offering a saintly portrait of mourning as pure devotion. She's naming the messy, human impulse to survive by numbing yourself, even when the loss is tied to a person the world insists you keep "on" for.
December 8th, the date of John Lennon's murder, is a cultural ritual as much as a personal one: candlelight tributes, media retrospectives, the annual re-freezing of a public tragedy. Ono pushes back against that calendarized grief. "Is not the only day" reads like a gentle rebuke to an audience that checks in once a year, consumes the story, and moves on. The subtext is pointed: you get to commemorate; she has to endure.
There's also a quiet reclamation here. For decades Ono was treated less as an artist and more as a plot device in the Beatles mythos - blamed, dissected, flattened into symbol. By speaking in plain, domestic time ("every day"), she re-centers the relationship as lived reality rather than headline. The quote's intent isn't melodrama; it's boundary-setting. It insists that the world's memorial schedule will never match the private, relentless arithmetic of loss.
December 8th, the date of John Lennon's murder, is a cultural ritual as much as a personal one: candlelight tributes, media retrospectives, the annual re-freezing of a public tragedy. Ono pushes back against that calendarized grief. "Is not the only day" reads like a gentle rebuke to an audience that checks in once a year, consumes the story, and moves on. The subtext is pointed: you get to commemorate; she has to endure.
There's also a quiet reclamation here. For decades Ono was treated less as an artist and more as a plot device in the Beatles mythos - blamed, dissected, flattened into symbol. By speaking in plain, domestic time ("every day"), she re-centers the relationship as lived reality rather than headline. The quote's intent isn't melodrama; it's boundary-setting. It insists that the world's memorial schedule will never match the private, relentless arithmetic of loss.
Quote Details
| Topic | Legacy & Remembrance |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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