In the night from the 17th to the 18th of April 1998 Linda McCartney died in the age of 56 in Tucson/Arizona at the family's retreat.
It became public in 1995 that Linda was suffering from breat cancer. The news at that time went
she's doing fine with the therapy. Since last year she showed up again in public at her husband's side at public events.
Only recently the couple witnessed the opening of their youngest daughter Stella's first art exhibition companied by theit son James
and their elder daughters Heather and Mary. Until the end Linda was invoved in Paul's musical efforts in quite
an essential way like on Paul's recent album from 1997, called Flaming Pie, which she isn't only heard on but
- like always - she also took the cover photograph as well as the pictures on the innersleeve of.
She happened also appear in the videos made to go with Paul's hits.
Since the Fab Four split up the Ex-Beatle wouldn't go on tour without his better half.
By 1998 "the lovely Linda" had seemed to have been fully recovered, Beatles-Fanzines reported
on her good condition, the British magazine Ok released Linda's "first interview after her desease"
which left an impression of hope and optimism. Everything seemed to turn out for the best for the McCartney family.
Now it is known that cancer had already progressed to liver and Linda's condition wasn't all that good as it apppeared to be.
Nevertheless it never seemed like as if she had been discouraged by her long fight.
Speculations from varous papers she had been given active euthasia turned out to be nothing but pure rubbish.
It was a fact that both the McCartney and Eastman families wanted to travel home in peace after Linda's cremation
without being surrounded by fand and reporters. That's why it was officially pronounced by the McCartney spokesman
that she had died in Saanta Barbara/California.
Reporters weren't content by not getting a glimpse of dead Linda or mourning Paul though but were
all too keen on getting to know about the exact circumstances surrounding Linda's death and cremation.
Much to their surprise there weren't any documents in connection with it at any authority.
Now it was clear for the media: The whole action took place inofficially. What reason should there be
for the non-existence of a document proving when and where she had died or when and where the
cremation had taken place.
Further they got aware of the fact that Linda just a few days before she diednhad said ferewell to all the people who
worked with the McCartney family (In fact she had known that she had been facing the final curtain).
All in all together it could only be onwe thing in the eyes of the journalists: The McCartneys must have
paid some doctor withz theit money to give Linda euthanasia which was illegal after Californian law.
No daed Linda but a story which you can fill papers with.
Journalists just know how to make hay. But Paul spoiled it all by letting know he admitted having
disguised the place of dying and the true one was the family retreat in Tucson/Arizona. There also all
the documents were found. Too late to prevent rumours from rising but in time to avoid further rubbish being made up.
Paul McCartney has always been a man who knew how to make a lot of money. But there has always been one thing
right in first place for him: His family.
Linda wasn't only active on a musical level with her husband. She relaesed two books featuring a selection of her photographs
that she shot in the sixties when she had been a young ambitioned photographer, she joined severla organizations for animal rights such as
PETA (People for Ethic Ttreatment of Animals) which got a big amount of incomings of McCartney's Second World Tour in 1993/94,
she advertised for a vegetarian lifestyle and published a book called Home Cooking
which featured various vegetarian cookery recipes created by none other than Linda herself.
Paul lost one of the most important influences to his songs, his wife whom he had a happy marriage with for almost 30 years.
(According to both of them they have only been nine nights apart. That was when Paul was in jail in Japan in 1980 because they had found cannabis in his luggage),
the mother of his children and last but not least the love of his life as he always regarded to her as.
As Paul expressed it in a letter to his fans: "We'll never get over it; but we will learn to accept it.".
For Paul Linda's deasese and finally her death cause the rising tragic memories:
His mother Mary died of breast cancer in 1956 when Paul was 14 years old.
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