I remember long ago how my mother would announce to my grandmother that so and so in Hollywood had died. They’d discuss it for a few minutes, utter “that’s so sad” and then put on the kettle to make tea. Some deaths stayed with them a few minutes and some longer. My mother’s eyes would get this faraway look.
Now I know that what she contemplated was the swipe to her sense of mortality with each passing of a celebrity of her generation.
I know, because I experience the same thing now. It’s apparent, after much discussion with friends my age, that I’m not alone in this.
As we witness the passing of the celebrities that filled our entertainment hours, we feel the connection to the tenuous hold we have on life. We feel it deeply because we’re suddenly thrown into focusing on it.
When Heath Ledger passed, those of us in middle age likely uttered something like “so young, how sad”, referencing his short time on this planet. Yet, when asking those around me close to his age, how they responded to his death, the usual answer was a shrug. Other younger celebrity deaths cause their fans to nearly go crazy like some who responded to Kurt Cobain’s death, for example.
As the years pass, I think we begin to really take it in, that universal rule that we die. With each celebrity passing, it becomes more obvious that escape is impossible. When celebrities our own age die, we get wide-eyes a moment, stumble to get hold of our emotions because there is more involved than just saying goodbye to an icon. When the famous person is more our own age, we’re faced with … no REMINDED (sometimes quite vividly) that this life ends. Every time, no exceptions. No matter how beautiful we are, how rich or famous (or both) we are, no matter our family tree, our heritage, our birthrights, our talents or faith, we die.
And celebrity deaths remind us of that fact.
More so sometimes than those close to us. Yes, when we lose loved ones or friends, we grieve. We experience the loss so personally that often we don’t feel that nudge that says that this is the way things are…the cycle of life. When we hear or read of a famous person’s death, it comes at us without the same emotional impact of close death. It comes at us like other media bits now. Like a weather report or political poll. Just another bit of the news.
That may actually be what throws us for a moment. News of someone’s passing can come to us so casually as to create a momentary pause in our day, to ponder the finite quality of life. It can be surreal, but it’s very grounding. The fact that this celebrity was our age, that they had things in common with us, or that we identify with them on some level, leaves us in awe of the sheer unpredictability and the absolute nature of Death’s knock. The only way to really outsmart this part of the journey is to make sure we don’t waste any of it.
It’s all about smelling the roses.
Copyright – jjthompson
Life on the Half Shell 