“What does?” I asked.
“Celebrities’ deaths.”
“Who’s your third?”
“David Bowie, Alan Rickman, and now Celine Dion’s husband.”
Well, the conversation broke down a bit there, ‘cause some of us don’t consider the spouse of a celebrity to count toward the three, but I’d heard that before. I may have even repeated the comment before, but I was NOT counting René Angélil. And then suddenly there were three. Dan Haggerty, aka Grizzly Adams, also passed. Now there is a celebrity from my childhood. There is literally nothing cooler than a mountain man who has a bear as a pet. Although I hadn’t thought of Mr. Haggerty in years, I was saddened to hear of his death.
Death is a hard thing. In this case, David Bowie and I are birthday-buddies, so we celebrated our birthdays together, in different places and with different people, every year for the past 43 years. We were, in a word, tight. I’d tell you to ask him, but unless you have a bellows handy, he probably won’t be able to confirm it.
Alan Rickman was a mainstay in my household. I have a daughter who is slightly obsessed with Harry Potter. Like she’s read the entire book series 20+ times over (NOT an exaggeration, by the way). The movies, which are verbally dismissed because they’re “not as good” as the books and “don’t follow the books perfectly,” etc., are watched all the time. I feel like Professor Snape lived in my house, or was at least a regular house guest. There are other roles, too. Three of my favorites are Marvin (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), Alexander Dane/Dr. Lazurus (Galaxy Quest), and the Sheriff of Nottingham (Robin Hood Prince of Thieves). We lost a friend of the family when Mr. Rickman gave up the ghost.
And Grizzly Adams, of course. What more can I say than has already been said.
They apparently always come in threes.
Just sometimes, they’re not celebrities.
Last month I was asked by a friend at work if I could help put together some end-of-life documents for his dad—a living will/health care power of attorney and a general power of attorney. I got the documents done and we drove out to visit his dad. He was part of the “greatest generation,” a man’s man and a real gentleman. We had opportunity to visit as we went through the documents and he just impressed me. He was genuinely grateful for the work I’d done for him. It was a blessing to be there and get to know him.
I was only at work for a week after that, then we went out of town for two weeks. I was only back in the office a week when I was told that this good man had passed away. His son, a former submariner in the Navy, couldn’t bear to look me in the eyes as he described the events surrounding his dad’s passing. The love and bond between a father and son were readily apparent.
About the same time I got word from my mother that my dad’s aunt Elaine had also passed on. Elaine was married to my paternal grandpa’s older brother, Ted. Ted and Elaine. They went together like peas and carrots. Ted was a crack-up. He had been born in Switzerland and raised in California. He had a sense of humor that I can only dream of. He was a teaser with a sparkle in his eye. I remember when my grandpa, his baby brother, passed away in 1989. At the funeral, Ted’s emotions were high and he wept in agony as they closed the casket following the viewing.
Elaine was Ted’s equal. She was a firecracker of a woman who had an opinion on everything. She loved people and loved to tell stories—stories about her and Ted’s adventures with my Grandpa and Grandma, like times at the cabin in Tahoe (why oh why did they sell that place?), their missions to the temple in Switzerland, and working together, stories about her own children and grandchildren, stories about family history and Switzerland and just about anything else you can imagine. She was a strong woman and fiercely loved her family. She was a crack-up, too—oh, could she joke with you. Perhaps my favorite thing about Elaine, though, was that she loved you. Didn’t matter who you were, when she talked to you, you were left feeling like you were the most important person in her life.
I was also surprised to learn that her name was Martha. Who knew?
She was the last of a generation in my family. Grandpa died in 1989. Ted not too long thereafter. Grandma passed in 2002. My mother’s dad died in 1993, and her step-mother in 2004. (My mom’s mother died when she (mom) was just 14, so I never got to know her). Elaine alone remained from that generation, at least that I enjoyed a real relationship with. It was her time to go, though, so she did. She will be missed.
The third one is an old elementary school friend, Carson. Carson lived not too far from me. Our ward (congregation) at church had a ton of boys our age, and Carson and I were just two in the crowd. He was a real athlete, as were his older two brothers. I lost track of Carson after my family moved to Hawaii when I was 14. Through the magic of Facebook, I had found Carson and caught up a little through his pictures and posts, but even though he was living in Vegas and St. George, we did not reconnect. Imagine my shock last week when I opened Facebook and Carson’s brother posted his obituary. Carson had been killed in a car accident. It was surreal—this was a peer, a friend from my childhood, someone my own age, gone in an instant. I couldn’t believe it.
I was happy to learn that Carson had found real happiness in his life. He had fought demons, but through the gospel of Jesus Christ was able to find real peace and save his family. One of our mutual friends shared a link to an entry Carson had posted online a short while ago. It was remarkable.
Because of the passing of these celebrities and my own personal celebrities, I’ve thought a lot about death recently. All of these deaths, with the possible exception of Elaine, have been so sudden. It seemed that David Bowie and Alan Rickman would live forever. They were both so talented and their work had an immortal feeling to it. Although their work will live on behind them, their time on Earth is over.
I expected Grizzly Adams to live forever, because, well, he had a bear for a pet. If you can have a bear for a pet and avoid death by mauling, then you should never die. Alas.
Why is it that death brings such a feeling of loss? I know that each of these people live on—not in their physical body, but in their spirits. Their bodies have stopped, but their spirits have gone home to that God who gave them life. They are freed from pains of cancer, old age, and other physical ailments. They can enjoy real peace.
So why is it so hard for those of us left behind? I believe it’s because we love them and the feeling of loss is a loss of the interaction, the times of joy and friendship and togetherness. We are left behind and we’ve lost, at least for a time, those relationships. But one of the great truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that we can be together with our families again. Death is not the end, it is merely a change. And that brings peace, even in the midst of sorrow and loss, it brings peace.
I will miss, on some level, each of these people. For some, like Bowie and Rickman, I can revisit and enjoy again their recordings and movies. I can think back fondly on Aunt Elaine and Carson. I can share time with my friend at work and remember the blessing of that one simple meeting. Yes, I will miss them. But I am grateful to have known them, to have shared in their lives in some small way.
I had a STOP THE PRESSES moment today. I had started writing this early today and had to shut down for a while. When I reopened, midway through my thoughts on Elaine, I was dismayed to learn that another celebrity, one that is both real and personal to me, had passed away today. Glenn Frey, one of the founding members of the Eagles, had died. As much as I enjoy David Bowie and Alan Rickman and even Grizzly Adams, none have had the influence on me that the Eagles have had.
When I was 8 years old and living in Carson City, a neighborhood friend named Jeff introduced me to the Eagles. We would rock out in his bedroom playing the Eagles on his hand-me-down record player. When my family was preparing to move to Utah, Jeff decided I needed an Eagles tape. We played his vinyl, cranked as loud as we could stand, and put a tape recorder right by the speaker (because that would allow me to play the tape twice as loud). And in just one moment, my life as an audio tech was over..
Without Jeff’s guidance, I didn’t follow the Eagles in the ‘80s, since they broke up and weren’t releasing albums together; however, as a teenager driving from Kahala to Hawaii Kai, “Take It Easy” came on the radio and a little voice inside my head said, “Hey man, is that freedom rock? TURN IT UP!” In an instant I was reconverted, and for almost 30 years the Eagles have been my favorite band. My very first CD was Eagles Live. In 1994, I rushed out to buy Hell Freezes Over and listened over and over and over. In 2003, after we had lived a life of poverty during law school and then dealt with the time and stress of bar exam prep and taking the bar exam, the Eagles came to Las Vegas and Clorinda and I went. It was my gift to myself. They did not disappoint, and they did not cheat us out of anything. They played EVERYTHING—the concert must have lasted 3 hours. It was heaven in the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
I have never felt real sadness when a celebrity passed away, but today I went out to my truck, put an Eagles CD in the stereo, and cranked up “Take it Easy.” I felt like I was supposed to pour out a beer or something, but I’ve never been trained in non-Mormon mourning customs, and I don’t have any beer anyway, so I just sat there with the stereo blaring, missing Glenn Frey, thankful for the memories of the times we’ve rocked out together over the years. And for CDs.
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