Dyinig Stars Leave Their Mark

After the deaths of celebrities Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson in June, I had a strong feeling that we were just getting started.

I said and posted somewhere that we would see more great ones die this year, including yet another American icon leaving us before the end of this month. Walter Cronkite died last night.

I see a legendary actress (and the most beautiful woman that ever lived, in my opinion) not making it to the end of the year, a BIG personality dying in a terrible accident (no drugs this time...) and one more from illness.

Morbid thinking? Maybe, but I've learned to not ignore these "feelings" because more often than not they turn out to be more than that. So I won't be surprised, though I will still grieve the death of people who in some magnificent way influenced my life.

I think of what's happening just like I think of the weather phenomenon "El Niño," which shows up every few years throwing the environment off a bit but having a domino effect that starts with the weather and ends with the inability of some animal species to survive.

In a similar way, I think at least half a dozen stars will fade this year. Some will explode; others will implode, leaving behind gaping black holes that will suck the life out of others nearby.

But if we live, we have to die--right? That's the one certainty in life--death.

I, for one, look at it as the natural progression of things--intellectually speaking, that is. Emotionally, aging and death kinda freak me out, to be honest.

I find aging depressing, especially if there are regrets (and there almost always are...), and death just plain confusing.

Religions provide us with theories about life after death. But despite the fervor with which these are believed, that's all they can be: theories, ideas, conjectures, presumptions, hypotheses--wishful thinking. Nobody really knows.

And in a way, therein lies the answer: if there was something there, wouldn't we have indisputable proof of it by now?

The possibility then arises that indeed there's absolutely nothing beyond death, and that unless we go through a process during which we're aware that we're dying, we don't even know we're dead because we cease to exist and, therefore, we cannot be aware of anything.

This line of thinking reminds me of what is like to be under anesthesia during surgery. We're injected with something and told to start counting back from 10 to one. By eight we're gone. And when we wake up and hour or 10 hours later, we feel as though we were just about to say "seven." There's no sense of time having passed and no inner awareness of it. That's because unconsciousness is unlike sleeping, during which we dream and sometimes toss and turn. When we're totally unconscious, we're mindfully dead.

And so I wonder: what if that's all there is when we die? What if it's about the organic death of the body and the cessation of consciousness, and end of story? Then we're truly dead, not just our bodies, but the "I" is dead. That would mean we and our awareness that "we came, we lived, we die" stop existing altogether. Nothingness.

Although that outcome would ensure the conclusion of any pain or suffering, we wouldn't be there to know we're no longer in pain or suffering.

How could that not be, you know, freaky?

And how can stars that shined so bright in the sky just drop out of sight? How can person who so many knew in life, who changed so many things for so many people just die?

I don't know. Assertions that such and such is now with the lord ... always with us ... watching us from above ... an angel in heaven ... and so forth give me no comfort because chances are they're untrue. Some believe it all; others don't even question it because they wouldn't want to risk losing the consolation these affirmations and explanations provide.

In any case, regardless of what we believe, at least in this plane of existence the person is gone, and for most of us that leads to grief.

I foresee more grief stemming from the death of BIG personalities coming up, and I'm not looking forward to it not only because of how these people will be missed, but also because with each death I'm reminded that sooner or later my time will be up.

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First photo: Light Echo Nebula. Second photo: exploding supernova