So, who loves irony?
You see, like probably pretty much every news wire in the world, we put out a package of end-of-the-year stories so our clients have enough stories to keep them busy during the slow season between Christmas and New Year’s. They’re a mix of fun features and look-ahead-at-the-news kind of items. Somehow, during the course of my time at my company, I’ve become the one in charge of them.
When we started them, we always did a roundup of the most famous celebrities to die during the previous year. I thought it was a great item to have and always pushed to have it in. I wasn’t always successful. I’ve had about five different bosses during my time at the company and some loved the item and some didn’t. Yet I’ve always fought to include them.
Over the years, I eventually got sick of the Yearenders. I think I managed to kill them one year. Then they were resurrected last year. I got out of handling them last year, on account of nearly half my family being on sick leave, but this year they were waiting for me as I showed up for my reintroduction to the working world.
And we’re doing the list of the dead.
Specifically, I’m doing the list of the dead. And it didn’t dawn on me until this morning – the day I’d set aside to put the list together – how bad an idea it might be for me to have this kind of job just three months after my son’s death.
I won’t lie. I went through Wikipedia’s list of famous deaths month by month to make sure we weren’t missing anyone. They break it down day by day. It’s fairly impressive. I discovered that there was an exotic dancer named Satan’s Angel who died. And there was a guy named Robert Sorrells, listed as an “actor and convicted murderer,” which makes it seem like he has quite the resume. And I neared September 17 and got a little choked up as I forgot the date. I forgot that Cokie Roberts died the same day.
But I got through it. I just told myself I had to be professional and get the list done and that was that. I scare myself a little bit, how easily I shut down my emotions at moments like this. Then again, how else am I going to do this? Probably millions of people died in 2019. My son was one of them and no one is going to put his name on a list or give him a Wikipedia page. That’s just the awful reality. So I guess I have to decide if I’m going to remember him by being a weepy mess or by functioning day to day. I’m choosing functioning, but it still doesn’t feel quite right.