Celebrity deaths remind us we're all mortal

Larger than life.

It’s a phrase you hear about famous people, whether they are actors, singers, athletes or anyone else we think of as a celebrity.

In recent weeks, many people we think of as celebrities have passed away. It’s strange, because as I’ve often commented to my wife, you don’t typically think of famous people dying, and you don’t hear of it very often. There are billions of people in the world, and each day, thousands die, but we seldom know any of them, and almost never do we hear of someone famous dying. At least until recently.

In the past month, celebrities like Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, David Carradine, and others we know from Hollywood have passed, as well as some famous athletes like NFL quarterback Steve McNair and boxer Arturo Gatti.

While some died of health-related issues, like McMahon and Fawcett, others died more tragic and mysterious deaths. Jackson allegedly abused prescription medication, while McNair was killed at the hands of a girlfriend. Gatti, whom many of you may not know, but I as a boxing fan recall fondly, was allegedly killed by his wife.

It’s no secret that death comes to us all, but we just don’t think about it in relation to our celebrities.

With the passing of all of these big names in the news, I began to do some Internet searching to find out about other celebrities who have passed away over the years. Just like almost any topic you can search on the Web these days, you guessed it, there are plenty of sites dedicated to celebrity deaths.

Two of the more helpful sites, at least for my purposes here, were  sites called findadeath.com and findagrave.com.

Findadeath.com provides a listing of celebrities who have passed away over the years, as well as details of their deaths, and even trivia and comments from other celebrities in some cases.

Findagrave.com features some of the same information, but also includes details about where the person is buried, and in some cases there are photos of celebrity graves and, I kid you not, GPS coordinates to the grave for those who want to visit. I guess these stats come in handy when visiting a larger cemetery.

It’s natural, I guess, to be a bit fascinated by the death of famous people in the first few days after they pass away. I hope it’s natural, because if not, I’ve gone a little too far and admitted a little more about myself than I should have. But I’m certain I’m just one of many out there who have spent a few more minutes watching features about the life of so-and-so, or reading stories on the Internet about what might have caused the death of one of the numerous celebrities to leave us recently.

Either way, normal or not, I’ve been watching, and I’m pretty sure, most of you have, too. It’s hard to resist. The people we are hearing about have been interesting to us to some degree at some stage of our lives, and we can’t help ourselves. But, like anything else, we will grow tired of hearing the same old stories, and eventually, we will want our news broadcasts back with real news. To be honest, I think I’ve reached that point in most of these celebrity cases. At least until the next one comes along.