Death

Worth


My Twitter stream was awash in updates on the Michael Jackson memorial event on Tuesday and Facebook was only slightly less nauseating. I have not made my distaste for Jackson a secret and while I am sorry for his family, children and whatever real friends he might have had, I am puzzled about the Princess Diana send-off (her funeral frenzy puzzled me at the time too).

Michael Jackson was a has-been. He peaked in the 80’s and destroyed, willfully it appeared, his celebrity and ability to live off his glory years with behaviors that ranged from completely out of touch with reality to criminal at worst/just plain immature and stupid at best. In addition to his “eccentricities”, he was a scam artist who died hundreds of millions of dollars in debt to people and lending institutions he strung along with visions of a comeback since the mid-90’s. So how does an alleged drug addict whose best years were squandered in a materialistic quest to undo his “horrific” childhood rate a send-off fit for a king? Even a king of something of questionable worth like “pop”?

My personal opinion is that his family is being manipulated into participating in a great advertising con which will benefit them some and others a lot more. I also think that if the world weren’t in the grips of the worst economic downturn in the living memories of most, his passing wouldn’t have rated more than a “meh”.

Someone on my Facebook feed commented after the BET tribute to MJ that it seemed to her that the performers were there for themselves and not particularly broken up about the reason behind the performance. I didn’t see the memorial. We have thankfully not only stopped watching television but dropped our cable subscription as well, but I wonder who among the celebrity performers – actors, actresses and the like – was there for personal sentiment and not as photo op or notch for their CV?

The week Will died, the son of a prominent local family died of a drug overdose. I think it may have been a suicide but regardless, he’d had a troubled adulthood. As a teen he was a heralded  tennis champion, but like many he peaked in the junior leagues and flopped trying to break onto the world scene. His sister was teaching at the same high school I was at the time though I wouldn’t have known her from a brick wall.

Will’s death rated an overpriced blurb on the obituary page. The newspaper only allowed a twitterish amount of character space for free and anything beyond “he’s dead” was at the family’s expense. This former junior tennis star with the wealthy successful father rated a front page story. His personal failures were downgraded with a heapful of sympathy and his squandered potential as a human being lamented. It pissed me off at the time and still rankles when things like the MJ memorial come up. I am still uncertain that “fame” or family connections or “talent” make one person worth more than another when all is said and done.

There are undoubtedly many, many other families laying loved ones to rest this week. People who’s passing will be barely noted by the world that came most closely in contact with them, forget the wider one. People whose characters weren’t questionable. People who didn’t use their bad childhoods as excuses to avoid growing up. People who manned up and took care of their debts to others. People who believed that respect, money, career, etc. is earned and not an entitlement.

I feel sorry for his mother. I feel for his children, his daughter especially who tried to defend him in her own little girl way, but I don’t think he merited the fuss and I am not looking forward to his “Elvis has left the building” period that is sure to come.

Columbine: 10 years Later


I was teaching in middle school in Des Moines, Iowa on the day the tragedy at Columbine High School occurred ten years ago. I was 35, engaged to be married that summer and had been teaching for a dozen years, working mainly with working class and at-risk kids.

By the spring of 1999, Des Moines had seen some of the worst gang violence in its history. At the middle school where I had worked previously, many of my students were involved in gangs. They were drug dealers who hid their weapons in the lockers at the beginning of the school day, wore bling – before it was called that – and flashed wads of cash that no fourteen or fifteen year old should have access to.

“Any time you need some extra cash, Miss Cox, just ask,” one of my newspaper students, Chris, informed me one afternoon, and he pulled a roll of paper bills bound by a rubber band out of the pocket of his baggy jeans. He smiled and nodded as I politely declined but thanked him for his generous offer.

Chris was a sweet kid, but a gangster who ran with a dangerous crowd. Despite that I was never afraid of him. His teachers in the Behavioral Disorder program marveled at how well we got on with each other. I was one of the few regular ed teachers whose class Chris attended regularly and without incident. His helpfulness and work ethic never surprised me. You could see the good kid underneath the bad circumstances that life had thrown him into.

But I taught my fair share of kids who were not simply products of their dicey environments. Children who suffered from mental illness who truly didn’t belong in a class with ordinary kids or in a school ill equipped to monitor them or protect others from them. And I went to work a few years afraid of a few of them and glad to see the backs of their heads come summertime, knowing that they would be someone else’s daily nightmare in the fall.

I think we locked the school doors for a few weeks after the Columbine killings. The district stepped up its half-hearted attempts at emergency procedures and lock-down drills. Every spring thereafter, we would get a little nervous and wait for the newspaper reports of another school shooting or thwarted attempt somewhere.

We joked that there wasn’t a student in the building we’d throw ourselves in front of a bullet for, war zone humor to hide the fear that one day we might very well be put in the position of choosing. Despite my promise to my husband-to-be that I would not sacrifice myself for someone else’s child, I would have. I would have protected any one of them. In fact, from then on I assessed my classrooms for possible defensive tactics and multiple escape routes. Every classroom I ever had thereafter in every school I worked, I knew what I could block the door with and how I would get my kids out if the occasion ever arose.

I taught for another seven years, and might still be teaching today if I hadn’t come to live in Canada, though I knew it was a vulnerable profession in terms of students and violence. I never let on to anyone but my husband if there was a kid I thought had the potential for a Columbine episode, and I made sure to point these kids out to counselors and administrators if they hadn’t already caught their attention – which was not often.

People scoff at teachers. We are considered people who opted out of real jobs for weekends off and summer vacations, but we are people who daily deal with a microcosm of society which includes kids like the two young men who murdered so many at Columbine ten years ago.

This is an original 50 Something Moms post by Ann Bibby of anniegirl1138 on April 20th.

Natasha Richardson is Dead


Like many people, I followed the Natasha Richardson story this week. She is the actress wife of actor Liam Neeson who was fatally injured in a skiing accident in Quebec. While details remain sketchy, it appears she suffered a head injury from a fall during  a ski lesson that initially did not seem serious but progressed rapidly to brain death and she was eventually taken off life support and allowed to die.

I am drawn to stories like this.

I shouldn’t call them stories, should I?

Natasha was a wife, mother, daughter, sister and on and on. A person who the other day was fine in all respects and is now gone. She leaves behind a husband, whose pain I wish I didn’t have first hand knowledge of, and two young sons. She’s not a story, but she is. 

We are all stories in the end.

I didn’t have to give the okay for Will to be removed from life support, but I did have to make the decision to refuse further treatment for his recurrent lung issues caused by his being bedridden and the aspiration issues caused by his increasing inability to swallow. I had to say no to the feed tube. Both things that could have prolonged his existence a few more months, or not. 

So I do know what it is like to have to decide for someone else and have that decision result in death. Even though it is the right thing to do, it doesn’t make it any easier or make you feel as though you did the right thing. Life should be fought for but existence should never be a goal.

My father suffered the last half of his life under the weight of such a decision. His younger brother was declared brain dead after a fall from a barn loft when I was eight years old. My sister, DNOS, and my mother always believed his drinking stemmed from the aftermath. He became the guardian of his father’s youngest sister who was living in a nursing home and of his mother as well. He also had to deal with his two oldest siblings and their coveting of Grandma’s inheritance which was considerable. There was quite a bit of rancor in the family for a number of years. But that is not what pushed Dad into the bottle.

It’s my belief that he struggled with the guilt of having been part of the decision to remove Uncle Jimmy from life support. Having to make the decision, even when it is right, is something that a person never quite finds peace with. I don’t believe Dad really ever did.

I feel for Natasha’s husband. Losing your partner is a terrible blow but having to make the call – makes it worse. I still sometimes feel as though I should have let the doctors’ treat Will one last time, but I know it wouldn’t have changed anything. He had been gone forever already – two and a half years – before he was physically able to die. My decision was the last gift I could give him. His freedom to go on, finally, to what comes next for us all – whatever that may actually be. 

This isn’t my tragedy, but it is a more common one than most of us realize.