My granddaughter, Tilleigh, 12, recently gave me the biggest compliment I've ever received.
"We're like the same person," she said.
And we are in so many ways.
My oldest grandchild of five, Tilleigh shares many of my features - red hair, hazel eyes, tall, lanky, outgoing and witty. One of her goals in life is to make me laugh (just like I did with my father), and she's always successful.
As she grows older and discovers who she is, we're both learning that she is, in fact, a lot like me. We have many of the same interests in music, movies, etc.
On a recent flight, I watched "Bohemian Rhapsody," because of all the positive reviews it had received. I knew very little about the late Freddie Mercury or Queen because, when the band was most popular, I was busy raising four children. I watched kid shows and listened to kid music. I couldn't have named any songs by Queen and other bands of that era, but I could have told you how to get to Sesame Street.
Watching "Bohemian Rhapsody" not only caught me up on Queen, I fell in love with them, and Mercury's incredible talent and personality.
I became obsessed with learning more about them and their music.
I researched the band to expand on what I learned in the movie. I became hooked. I am now a dedicated Queen fan. I had a feeling Tilleigh would be, too.
I debated about letting her watch the movie, though its rating of PG-13 is typically OK for her. So I read many reviews, got her mother's approval and decided it was OK for her to watch.
Tilleigh is an actress, having performed in plays since she was 5. She's a theater major at Chattanooga High School Center for Creative Arts, and I knew she would not only love watching the magic of actor Rami Malek transforming into Mercury for the movie but also the incredible talent involved in the film.
I wasn't wrong. Like her grandmother, Tilleigh was hooked. We are now both obsessed with Queen, and we're educating ourselves about them together.
We were interested in learning all about Mercury, as well as the rest of the band, particularly Brian May, a Ph.D astrophysicist. He was recently in the news for writing the song "New Horizons," honoring NASA's spacecraft of the same name, which on the first day of 2019 flew past the most distant target in history, Ultima Thule, according to NASA.
Not only are Tilleigh and I learning about Queen, we're learning about astrophysics and that the same guy who wrote "New Horizons" also wrote "We Will Rock You." How cool is that?
Of course, Tilleigh and I were thrilled when Malek won the Oscar for Best Actor. He deserved it. There are YouTube clips comparing Malek's portrayal of Mercury, and the likeness is uncanny. It was educational for Tilleigh to see how an actor could portray someone so perfectly.
Researching the history of Mercury, who died in 1991 from complications of HIV/AIDS, also opened the door to us talking about the disease and the progress that has been made in HIV/AIDS research, as well as The Mercury Phoenix Trust, an organization started after Mercury's death by the remaining Queen members to raise money for HIV/AIDS research (www.mercury phoenixtrust.com).
"Bohemian Rhapsody" is one of the best movies I've ever seen. Queen is an incredible band, and Freddie Mercury was an amazing singer. As Tilleigh and I begin to acquaint ourselves with the band and their albums (she's already familiar with half their songs, she says, noting that I need to catch up), we are reminded of the importance of tolerance. The world loved Queen, we've learned, and they loved Freddie Mercury. And, now, so do we.
Email Karen Nazor Hill at khill@timesfree press.com.