My Neighbor Doesn't Come Into My House Every Week To Make Me Laugh And Cry

Over at NiT they're still eulogising the Crocodile Hunter in that way the Internet has. One person expresses her feelings, some people agree with them, other people laugh at them and then soon it turns into a referendum on the Behaviours of Mankind.

When the news about Steve Irwin's death hit the wire on Monday, there were a lot of blogs about it. People were generally sad but unsurprised. Some people were even happy about it. (Now all those poor crocodiles can rest in peace and don't have to snap angrily at the goofy man.) But there are a few people raising the hew and cry about why we mourn celebrities more than we mourn the people we know.

Being one of the people who cried several Labor Day Weekends ago when I found about Princess Diana, I have an answer.

Death is everywhere all the time. Death is life's only guaranteed outcome. Some deaths hit harder than others. Parents' and siblings' loss touches deeply, the loss of a spouse is heartbreaking and the loss of a child is emotional hell. But if that level of grieving greets every death a person hears about, that person will be truly handicapped and unable to deal with her own life. So we mourn most deeply the people with whom we have an emotional connection.

And like it or not, people form emotional connections with celebrities. Celebrities are people, but they also represent a type of an escape from the mundane. A celebrity is glamourous on the days when you feel blegh. A celebrity entertains you. And they ask nothing of you in return, other than your continued patronage. It's a form of unconditional relations that you don't have anywhere else in your life. So when a celebrity who made you laugh and cry dies, you feel a bit sad. I was a bit sad when Mr. Rogers died. I was less sad when my neighbour died because our paths seldom crossed. About the only thing we had in common was our mutual love of Phillips' Brandywine floorplan. Mr. Rogers, on the other hand, ferried me daily to the Land of Make-Believe. He had a big stoplight in his house. He was friends with his mailman. He taught me to appreciate jazz and toy houses. Sometimes in some small way we actually do get some good from the famous. And I don't think it's bad to miss them a bit when they're gone.