Life expectancy

Remember how people used to talk about celebrity death trifectas? 

I think it was always more myth than reality. If one famous person died, people just talked about that. If a second famous person died shortly after, then people would wait for the third. Even if you got three, the connections were usually pretty tenuous.

Lately, it feels like there have been too many deaths to count in threes, that it's been going on for a while, and while famous people have been included, it is more general than that.

I had indicated that I was going to write about death and how we think about it, but first I want to point out the recent prevalence of it.

Maybe I am just noticing more or it has been weighing on me more heavily.    

We have made it through the first full year since my father's death and have passed some important milestones. My mother is still in hospice and outlasting predictions. I might be a little sensitive on this topic. (We also recently had to say goodbye to a cat we'd had since 2013.)

Still, it feels like more people are dying, often younger or more suddenly than one would hope. It's like there are more accidents, more illness, more suicide, and more exacerbating stress.

All of which would make sense, considering things.

I believe that this life is not all there is, so am not really scared of death; I am hopeful about it. That being said, I am still deeply aware of the grief of separation. Believing that it is only temporary may make it hurt less, but it still hurts.

In addition, I believe that life is precious and significant. There is so much that it can be good to do with this time that we have together that we shouldn't want to see it cut short.

And it keeps happening, to friends and relatives of friends and prominent people and everywhere in between. I don't think it's my imagination.

Over a month ago I asked for learning module suggestions, but much of the feedback I received related to things that were issues where it was not that people didn't know, but probably that they didn't care. That included driving and parking lot etiquette.

I have seen some very dangerous driving lately. It appears to be due to some people not being willing to wait. I have no reason to believe that they don't know that they shouldn't make a turn out of the straight lane or run the light just as it turns red or wait until the absolute end of the line to merge and then assume the person who planned appropriately will have to let you in. 

I also see that people don't seem to know how to do things that I took for granted when I worked retail, like making change or bagging groceries so there wasn't squishing or contamination. These weren't things that I was taught so much as just understood; they were clear if you thought about it. There is less thinking.

There might be reasons there are more accidents.

Not only have most people given up on trying to prevent spreading diseases like COVID, but -- especially with anti-vaxxers -- there may be resistance to preventing any disease. Plus, as we strip away environmental protections and food safety, the odds of taking in something toxic from the food you eat, the water you drink, or the air you breathe goes way up. 

There might be reasons there is more illness. 

That, along with increased racism, hate, dehumanization, and the blaring of all of it, may potentially explain an increase in stress and suicide. 

That's not encouraging, I know.

I know there are limits to what we can do, but let's do what we can. Especially, let's be kind and caring to each other. Those positive interactions feels so much better than doomscrolling. They're more effort, but they are worth it.

Also, if this can end on a somewhat better if still morbid note, two freak accidents have stuck in my mind recently, and maybe there can be some humor here:

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/us-sport/jeff-webb-charlie-kirk-cheerleading-dead-b2942614.html 

First of all, Charlie Kirk's (Kirk is going to come up later) mentor died in a "freak pickleball accident"; I don't understand how those three words go together. 

I guess you can injure your head doing anything. One reason I know life is fragile is learning about how the different things we see in movies and television would really play out. You cannot easily knock someone out temporarily without bad risks, as inconvenient as that is.

Without laughing at death, this terrible guy who mentored another terrible guy (but apparently not in cheer, which he influenced a lot) also had a duck-hunting estate in Arkansas. Who does that?

Then -- and this story is better because it does not end in death and involves a better person -- Pat Smear was injured in a freak gardening accident, requiring a temporary replacement guitarist for the Foo Fighters:

https://www.guitarworld.com/artists/guitarists/pat-smear-injured-in-gardening-accident 

I can only assume that he was working on a retaining wall and dropped some of the stones on his foot, but it is impossible to get details on it because all you find is This is Spinal Tap jokes, referencing original drummer John "Stumpy" Pepys who died in a bizarre gardening accident that the authorities said it was best to leave unsolved.

So, we can be grateful that Pat is not a drummer, but then I remember that the Foo Fighters painfully lost their real drummer, and that if they hadn't made Spinal Tap II: The End Continues when they did, they wouldn't have had Rob Reiner... 

A lot of it just sucks.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/03/death-life-and-legacy.html  

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/02/putting-it-out-there.html