Jill's Journal: 'You're going to make it after all'

Who didn’t love Mary Tyler Moore? I bet the vast majority of gals my age did, and I’d even go as far to say that as you began reading this, the melody of her show’s famed “Who can take the world on with her smile?” theme song went swirling through your brain just now. And like me, you probably know all of the words – or at least most of them – to the hard-to-forget tune that ends with Mary tossing her hat high into the air in the middle of busy downtown Minneapolis street as the song’s famed ending words, “You’re going to make it after all,” are heard.

I grew up watching her first as the perky and loveable stay-at-home wife, Laura Petrik, in “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and of course in her most iconic role as the single-girl-ventures-to-the-big-city, Mary Richards, in the very memorable “Mary Tyler Moore Show,” which, growing up, was a Saturday night ritual in our home. 

I grew up wanting to be Mary Richards. I wanted to live in her cute little apartment with the big “M” on the wall and have a magical walk-in closet that was the keeping place for a wardrobe any young woman of the 70s would’ve died to have. I equated Mary Richards to a real-life Barbie doll that not only I, but likely thousands, probably millions of young girls just like myself, yearned to be.

Fast-forward four decades, and I guess, in some odd way, I, am “Mary Richards.” I work in news, the print side of things, not television. I, too, first typed my stories on a typewriter, just like Mary. And I’ve had a few bosses like Lou Grant (including the bottle of whiskey in the bottom desk drawer and all).

While I’m not living in the “big city” per se, I have lived on my own for the vast majority of my adult life. While I don’t have the cool apartment with the big “M” on the wall and a magical closet that contains a wardrobe a girl could only hope for, I do have a book that’s been cut in the shape of a “J” on a shelf, and to be honest, my closet and dressers are plum full of clothes. Unfortunately, due to constraints – smaller than required size – some of those clothes haven’t seen the light of day – sad to say, for a very long time.

Yes, it’s time to clean out the closets. That’s one of those “jobs” that’s easy to put off until tomorrow, and then all of a sudden, it’s three years later and now there’s even more to sort through than before.

But that’s a topic for another day.

Today is about Mary Tyler Moore, a woman that made me laugh – a lot – and she made me cry sometimes, too. She touched my heart – and probably many of yours – with an innocence highlighted by her simple fears that made her one of the best comedic actresses of her time. I rank her up there with Lucille Ball – also one of my all-time favorites – and today, Melissa McCarthy. Oh, sure, there are other great actresses that I’ve long admired, but these gals, they’ve been some of the funniest, the ones who not only tickled my funny bone, but touched my heart, too.

It was a year ago later this month that Mary Tyler Moore passed away. I remember discovering the news while scrolling through Facebook that day. There were dozens of postings from people I didn’t know and a few friends, who like me, felt an obvious connection to her. The television was filled with special reports of her life, the impact she had on us all, and her uncanny legacy of making people laugh.

Yes, I wanted to be Mary Richards when I grew up. I wanted the cute apartment with a big “M” on the wall. I wanted her closet of clothes and to work in a newsroom. And I wanted to “take the world on with my smile.”

And in some little way, through the laughs Mary Tyler Moore gave us all, I’m confident that “I’m going to make it after all,” too.