Ruminations

Blog dedicated primarily to randomly selected news items; comments reflecting personal perceptions

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Enough, Please!

It is never pleasant when anyone loses their life. All the more so when that loss of life occurs unexpectedly and as the result of a seemingly insignificant event. But such things do happen. We read small items in the newspaper from time to time of young people, around the age of 20 with previously undiagnosed heart problems suddenly collapsing with a fatal heart attack. We can be vigilant to a certain degree, but we cannot interrupt all of our activities to weigh the balance of safety before proceeding to live our lives.

It is a tragedy for any family to lose someone whom they love. All the more so when there are young children left without a parent as a result of that loss. But it is irksome beyond belief to have to read countless stories relating over and over again how very special a particular loss is because it is a celebrity who has lost life. As, for example, the death of British actress Natasha Richardson. This was a truly untoward event, one that resulted in a personal calamity.

She was taking skiing lessons, and was on an moderate beginner hill, along with an instructor. She experienced what appeared to be a negligible fall. One from which she was immediately able, on her own steam, to recover from, raising herself, and laughing off the incident. When she was approached by a first-aid response team on the spot she waved them off, despite their warning that something amiss might have occurred without her knowledge.

Within an hour she was in marked physical distress and was taken to a medical centre; from there to a full hospital setting where she fell into an irreversible coma from which she would never be resuscitated. Her family flocked to her bedside, as families are wont to do, where everyone in shock, disbelief and grief, comforted one another. This is what families do, in extremis. And such disastrously untoward events do occur randomly from time to time.

So the appearance of one solemn testimony after another, lamenting the passing of a talented actor from a distinguished acting family afflicts the reading public each and every day; multiple items with their excruciatingly irritating little details about the woman's beauty and talent and skills. Why must we be assaulted in this manner? She was in the business of entertainment, and as such represented a middling talent.

There was nothing to distinguish her as a particularly outstanding public figure, an individual of great public merit, someone who made her mark other than through her family's proclivity for thespian display. She did that which pleased herself. She earned her living entertaining others. Her death was a tragedy for her family.

A simple obituary would suffice, thank you very much. Once, and once only.

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