The day after my wedding, actor Jonathan Brandis committed suicide, the reason is still unknown.
Now, this was several years ago, but it still pains me. I was a huge fan when I was younger, not just because of his drooly good looks, but I thought he was a wonderful actor and his love of writing mirrored my own.
I found out about his death a couple of months after the event, and I was rather shocked. It just seemed so out of the blue.
Anyhow, I've been watching SeaQuest DSV lately (I'm ignoring whatever comments you may make Chary) and it's really wierd. It's really hard to come to terms with the fact that the person I'm watching is now dead. I just can't get my head around it. And I've always had this problem with death. For the longest time after someone dies, it feels like they've gone on holiday or something. I just can't accept that they're gone forever.
I think that perhaps this is because I've never actually seen a dead body before. I've never been to a viewing, never come across a car accident, never been with anyone as they peacefully pass away in their hospital bed. My mother tells me that you just know when someone leaves their body, you can actaully sense that they have departed from this world and left an empty shell behind. Perhaps this is why I have trouble accepting the loss of a loved one - because I've never seen what they leave behind.
Anyway, I don't know if I'm a bit odd or not, having the death of someone I've never met affect me so. Maybe I can just analyse my feeling better when it's not so personal?
So, here's to the memory of Jonathan Brandis. May you finally find where you are now, that which you could not find here.
5 comments:
*hugs*
I don't know the actor, but I know exactly what you mean about not accepting deaths.
I remember when he died, too, Nettie. My wife had had a rather bad crush on the guy when she was young (she even had a scrapbook full of pictures of him), so it kind of affected me strangely to hear about his death. It is rather sad.
I've found, though, that it's better not to see somebody after they've died. If you never see their body, you can only remember them as they were when they were alive. The people whose bodies you do see, though, often when you think of them you'll remember how they looked when they were dead.
Oh, and SeaQuest wasn't bad for the first few seasons or so, but after that. . .
I see you're wife had good taste in men Acci!
I have seen people after they passed, on the job working the freeways in Los Angeles and also at funerals. The first one was my childhood friend who tragically died on his 18th birthday due to accident. I couldn't handle it, I lost it. But, with my grandparents, who died of natural causes and lived long, healthy lives filled with joy, I found it much more bearable though still quite emotional. I think there is a distinct difference between someone passing unexpectedly (as was the case with Jonathan Brandis) and someone who has had a long fullfillng life which can be celebrated at their passing rather then simply mourning for someone who should still be with us.
Death of a person is one of the most difficult things to deal with. Certainly if you have bonds to that person, be it family bonds, friendship bonds, or whatever bonds.
I saw two friends die too young last year. That gets me so angry. The assholes live on, the good ones go...life is unfair.
I've come to accept death. I mourn, I remember the death: but I accept they are death. I also accept that the death who for some reason were dear to you, will never leave your memory. I amm not affraid of death either, meaning I am not affraid to die. Dying, juts like birth, is part of life.
I also learned that you can forgive in death. Its no use upholding a grudge when the person has died.
About viewing a body: this greatly depends. It greatly helped me when my father had died, he already had died before I could get to the hospital. I talked to him as hee lay there, and stayed quite some time with him. I do not regret doing that, both on the night of his death and the day of the cremation. t helped me. Like it also helped me to personally dispense his ashes into the sea, from a boat, 5 miles out of the coast of Scheveningen.
But in the recent case of one of the friends that died too young, she looked very bad in death, absolutely not as she was in life. I wish I had not chosen to view here there.
I don't think it is strange, Nettie, that you feel affected by the death of someone you never met. This can happen, for example if you knew the person from reputation, his/her deeds in life, and those somehow impressed you. The meaning of a person to you can be in many things, so if someone has a meaning for you, it is natural to feel affected when that person dies. It seems to be accepted in our society too, look at the mass mourning when Lday Di died. So if you think you are odd in this, our whole society is odd in this, or at least a considerable part of it.
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