Death

Death, death, death,  it’s all around.  Today it is Alan Rickman, also 69, also cancer.  I think of him as Snape, of course, although I mentioned his death to my  wife and she said “Oh, he was the bad husband from ‘Love, Actually,” right?”

Alan Rickman.1946 – 2016. RIP

I’m noticing on  facebook that  many people remember him from different roles, which is nice.  He was a good actor.

Yesterday it was a friend of a friend, she seemed to think I might  have known him too, we worked at the same place at the same time, but there were a lot of people in that office and I didn’t  know very many of them well.  I couldn’t place him.  Yet, his death was sadder because he was only 44.

After David Bowie  died, a different friend posted a clip of a blues singer, Otis Clay, who had the terrible misfortune to die  on the same day as David Bowie.  I’d never heard of him before, but it was a cool video, and sad that I only came to know him upon his death.

I guess it’s fortunate for Miguel Cervantes and John Adams that they died before the advent of social media and thus, presumably, were individually mourned.

My point is, I guess, as far as I have a point, is that this year is off to a hell of a bad start with people dying almost every day.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, though, I have a new nephew (grandnephew, I  guess – he is my nephew’s son), Michael Eric Stalter, and life carries on.