I was just getting in my car when I checked my phone and noticed a tweet from the JustJENN which read
The Joker - Heath Ledger- is dead?! WHAT!?
That can't be right, I thought, and I drove home through the drizzle, wondering if she was talking about the new Batman movie, perhaps? Does the Joker die at the end? I let myself in the apartment and before I let Daisy out of her crate, I went to my computer.
I found Daisy and walked her through the rain, wondering why I was so upset. Sure, I thought his work in Brokeback Mountain was great but I wasn't really a fan. As I poked around on my blogroll, I discovered that a lot of people were experiencing the same sort of shock.
We aren't surprised to hear about a Brad Renfro, but Heath Ledger takes us aback. But the lesson is this: those who appear to have it all - looks, fame, success, money - can still feel as if they have nothing. It's one of those uniting moments of our humanness. We all know joy, but we all also know sorrow. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn't experienced utter, gut-wrenching hopelessness.
Now everyone has a different take on what they find hopeless. I once knew a man who came to work after the funeral of his mother but needed a week off and therapy to get over the death of his dog. We can judge what is worthy through our own personal filter. I know that I'm guilty of doing so, especially when I read blogs. Will will vouch for this, as he hears my irritated voice calling out you'll never believe what she's bitching about now, she might as well be saying boo-hoo I have too much money feel sorry for me! But everyone's got that dark place. And for some of us, that darkness has no other side.
There's no news on whether the overdose was accidental or intentional.
The other lesson is this: life is fleeting. Cliched, but true. A few years back I was living the proverbial high life, collecting residuals, occasionally working, living in a big fancy house on the hill, playing WoW and throwing cocktail parties. Now I'm working three part-time jobs and considering a fourth (on Sundays!), I'm running two blogs, I have a punishing workout program, I'm attempting to get in my 12-15 hours of picketing a week (currently failing miserably) and oh, yeah, there's that whole business of living: grocery shopping, doing laundry, hanging out with my husband, walking the dog.
We all have stories like this. I'll admit that there have been times, even recently, where I've collapsed in an exhausted, weepy heap and declared that I'm hopeless. I just can't do it anymore. But after those moments (or, erm, days), I pick myself up and dust myself off and vow to work just that much harder. Survival isn't just to get us through post-apocalyptic times. It's also to get us through today.
Because fighting for it? That's the essence of our humanness, too.
