From hereto eternity

Until his recent self-imposed retirement late last year, he was still on the stage stumbling through his old moves, forgetting lyrics to songs he had sung for 40-plus years, blanking out at the TelePrompters placed all over the stage, barking orders at son and bandleader Frank Jr. in front of audiences. He was a shadow of a shadow when he came to the Fair Park Music Hall last year, still capable of finding that occasional spark that still flickered within him, but more often than not drifting out and nodding off. It was sad, exhilarating, touching, altogether uncomfortable. You just knew people went to see Frank so they could say they saw Sinatra before he died.

But he's not dead, just old. Just tired. Just alone. He will never sound as wonderfully sad as he did when he cried the words to "In the Wee Small Hours," nor will he phrase a lyric so precisely as he did on "I've Got You Under My Skin." But he doesn't have to anymore, not if he lived to be a thousand.