Yesterday the world lost a truly great talent, the great Whitney Houston passed on to join Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson, Etta James, Elvis Presley, and TuPac. Such a sad, sad day. Every American news agency is blasted with information and memorials of Ms. Houston, Facebook and Twitter are inundated with personal tributes to her from people who only knew her voice - how tragic!
Though I will recognize that Ms. Houston, like the other late but great's will be missed, I'm sure her family and friends are devastated beyond measure. But, here's what upsets me: Whitney Houston dies...everyone else is forgotten. According to statistics: 2,437,163 people died in the United States in 2009 (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm), and take a moment to really look at that number. Every one of those two million, four hundred thirty-seven thousand, one hundred sixty-three deaths was that of a son or daughter, mother or father, sister or brother, a friend, a loved one; some of them probably had amazing talents, were wonderful people, were kind, felt pain, had memories...and each of them are gone.
More recently, in 2011 418 members of the United States Military died in Afghanistan (http://icasualties.org/) each of them also sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, friends, loved ones who put their lives on the line to fight for this country. Those 418 join the other 5,959 United States Service Members who have died since 2001 in the Middle East. Where was their overwhelming memorial in the news? Why weren't they a "trending topic" on Twitter? They willingly signed over their lives for the protection of this Country and the freedoms it represents - why aren't all of their names in lights?
Currently, and this is hard to tap into, it is projected that, as of 1730, February 2nd, 2012:
6,619,740 people have died worldwide this year
113,000 just today
22,356 of those dead this year died of hunger
889,746 of them were children under the age of 5
40,242 were mothers bringing children into the world
114,820 were from Malaria - a curable disease...
Need I go on? (http://www.worldometers.info/) And sadly, every second that tics by these numbers grow. I am not trying to diminish the sadness of any death, famous or not, what I am trying to do is gain some perspective. Whitney Houston was a famous singer who graced the world with her wonderful talent, but who were those other six million, six hundred nineteen thousand, seven hundred thirty-nine souls? Is one soul worth remembering more than another? Does talent out weigh the tragedy that we each over look in the world around us? Or is it just easier to ignore these numbers? We'll pick and choose which death is the saddest. The fact of the matter is, most of us didn't know Ms. Houston or Mr. Jackson any better than we know the vast majority of those listed above. The only difference is we heard their name, listened to their music, helped make them millionaires...but the fact is that I doubt any of us knew them personally, shook their hands, had deep discussions with them.
In my oddly skewed worldview, I believe that every death - near and far - should be considered a tragedy. Every person has some form of potential, and with each death the planet as a whole has missed out on an opportunity. Maybe before we go mourning the celebrities, we take a moment to mourn the deaths that happen everywhere, all the time. Perhaps, if we gain a little perspective, one celebrity's death wont be so much more saddening than all the deaths that could be prevented.
Umm... but did anyone else win Grammys who died? I think I've made my point.
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