Tragic Deaths Always Make me So Sad

I was raised in a tv-less household, so I was spared much of the crap my friends were put through while growing up, but my Dad had a tv at his place of work. Since he worked odd hours, he was alone much of the time there, and some of my fondest memories are of Mom, me and the kids piling into the car after dark to take him dinner and watch a show or two. It was such a treat! And gosh, it really wasn't that long ago, either.

Our favorites were old things like Laurel and Hardy or the Three Stooges, but if the Crocodile Hunter was on, it was unanimous. We loved that guy! The next day, our yard would witness four young teenage kids tramping out on a trek to find "dangerous" scorpions, snakes, lizards, and other desert wildlife. All of the rabbits and coyotes had run away by the time our shouts of "Crikey!" and other very badly done Australian tinted jabber had hit them, but we didn't care because they were the fuzzy wuzzy cutsey animals, and we were after "adventure".

I think we liked him so much because he reminded us of our Dad, sans the crikey bit. He was a Forest Fire Fighter guy, who tramped up and down mountains for a living, rescuing people, putting out fires, etc. Even when we were teeny, tiny he would take us out on hikes in the mountains, show us desert tortoises, birds, snakes, skinks, scorpions, frogs. He taught us to replace whatever we removed so as not to disturb the animal's natural habitat, and when the Crocodile Hunter echoed these words, we were like "Wow, Dad really is smart!". He made sure we could tell poisonous snakes from harmless ones, and he had a friend who was a park ranger that had a nature museum full of real snakes, tarantulas, toads and things. This guy wasn't as cool as my Dad, since he wasn't a fire fighter, but he was number two on the cool list. He hiked hundreds of miles in rough terrain, caught and relocated rattle-snakes and other wild life that city hikers couldn't deal with, etc. So we kids were very comfortable with the Crocodile Hunter and kind of treated him like an uncle we'd never met.

A couple years later, married and far away from my family, I think I totally forgot about all of this stuff until my husband told me that Steve Irwin had died. I was like. . .Steve Irwin? Who the heck. . .ohhhhh, the Crocodile Hunter!!! Memories just came flooding back. I've been thinking about him for the past couple days now, trying not to read all of the stupid news stuff about him and all, but this morning I sat down and just thought. . .why am I thinking about this guy so much? I didn't know him, never met him, don't know what kind of man he was in real life. But tragic deaths always make me sad, especially when I kind of DO know the person who died. When you spend time with someone on tv, it's like you get to know them somewhat (or the character that they are acting). That's why it is so dangerous to watch movies with characters you wouldn't want to be like, because their actions and thought and vileness will kind of have an effect on you, just as hanging around friends like that in real life would. But Steve Irwin was so real. You could tell he was just as funny, just as rip-roaring and adventurous in real life, and we kids really respected that. So many tv personalities are sooo fake. Anyway. . .

Tragic deaths make me sad, because I have always seen death as the last chance to change. For someone who was busy with life and stuff, not really paying attention to God (I have no idea if Irwin was religious or not, but I highly doubt it) and soul, the dying process is a sharp reminder of the last things. All of the sudden that person has to think about "what's going to happen to my soul, do I really have one, is hell a real place and am I going there? What can I do. . .God forgive me. . .death. At least that's what you hope is going through their minds.

However, having lived a life of risk and running the chance of death very often, I wonder if Mr. Irwin remembered this every day. . .or not at all. If not at all, his sudden death saddens me very much, because he very likely had no time to think from between "oh, nice sting-ray" and "-----------". It's nice and tempting to think that because he was "such a nice man" or "did so much for children" that he went straight to heaven, but as a Catholic I am sober faced. The vale of tears was hidden from this man, as he went about his captivating life, as so many people out there are doing, not aware of the great battle for souls that is raging right in the midst of all we are doing. A life. . .wasted? This, the world does not want to hear! They want to make the Crocodile Hunter a hero, he died filming a film for his daughter's show, isn't that wonderful? I'm thinking of his two little kids that loved him very much, who now have no Daddy, and his wife who is now facing raising them alone. And I'm wondering if it was all just a waste.

I really hope not. But this should be an eye opener for all of us. Every death should be an eye opener for all of us. We all drive on the freeways, we are all absorbed in the task of providing for our families, taking care of loved ones, making sure the bills get paid, the car has gas, the fridge has food in it, the house is clean, Aunt Sally is still talking to us even though we never write her, etc. Life is being made more and more complicated every day, and people are running out of time to do things like think about a holy death. You could die any minute, unexpectedly. How will your soul fare? Staying as best we can in the state of grace is so important, frequent comfession, a must. Death is the most wonderful last minute opportunity to get things in order, that is why we Catholics pray for a happy death. The best death anyone could have is the one St. Joseph experienced, surrounded by angels, cradled in Mary and Jesus's arms. Let's not let death take us unprepared.

St. Joseph, Patron of a Happy Death, ora pro nobis.

And let us keep the Irwin family in our prayers as well as Steve Irwin's soul.