You Live and Then You Don't

Death is life's greatest mystery.

Check that! Life is life's greatest mystery. The end of it is just another part of it.

I'm always a little bemused, and sometimes amused, by the myriad ways people react to it. It's certainly not an event that is generally welcomed but, on the other hand, it's hardly surprising except, sometimes, when the timing and the circumstances are awful.

I was still awake Friday night when Betty Ford's demise was announced. Andrea Mitchell appeared on air looking devastated and haggard and revealed the "sad" news.

Holy Nellie, Andrea....she was 93 years old! and I am sure you haven't been spending so much time in her company that her absence has left a hole  in your life. 

Maybe it's a function of my great age that I find her departure evokes just a little nostalgia for the '70s (ugh!) and the acknowledgement that she made a number of useful contributions to society, but I found it hardly devastating news. 

However, maybe that's what Andrea is paid to do. Be devastated on cue. Not much of a leap since she and her husband almost always look mournful.

One reaction to death  I found less amusing and more revolting was Rush Limbo's statement that liberals wouldn't have cared about Caylee's fate if she had still been in the womb. Of course not, you dumb ass. She wouldn't have been a person.  She wouldn't have known what it was to laugh and cry and do. People wouldn't have seen her and held her and loved her. Absolutely no loss to her or anyone else.

When I started life as a journalist I was given the job of editing the birth and death announcements for the paper. After a few months of total boredom, I asked my editor if we couldn't change the hed on it to Arrivals and Departures. 

I guess my views haven't changed that much.

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