Tears For a Clown?

There are two things I have been thinking about over the last couple of days, one funny and one very sad. They have absolutely nothing to do with one another yet they are juxtaposed in my mind and the thought of one seems to lead to the thought of the other whether they are related or not. I will deal with the sad one first:

On Monday the news came through about the untimely death of Steve Irwin, Australia's "Crocodile Hunter." Although I lost interest in his show after he took his infant son into the enclosure with him WHILE HE FED THE UGLY BUGGERS, I felt a real grief when I learned the news of his death. I have always found it curious that we feel so strongly about our celebrities because most of us have never even been in the same room with any of these people much less intimately acquainted enough with any of them to have been able to claim any sort of relationship at all. Yet, we grieve and rejoice along with them and for them. I will leave the whys and why nots to the psychologists and sociologists and just say that I , too, do that very thing. So what was it about Steve Irwin that brought about the tears that suprised my face the other morning? After taking a few days, reading some of the tributes, and the single criticism (from Germaine Greer who apparently, feeling the waning of her own star, feels the need for attention so greatly as to take any opportunity to command some), and getting my head around my own emotional reaction, I have decided it was because he was in the category of extra or ultra-human.

Steve Irwin was larger than life. He was passionate about Australia and her wildlife, passionate about the world and its wildlife, and passionate and proud of his family. I cried because he was a member of my world family and I will miss his being there whether I had any cravings to watch him saddle another crocodile or not. My heart goes out to his wife and children. I hope their last words to one another were ones of love and I hope his wife will always cherish her memories of his liveliness, his passion for animals and environmental issues, and his love and pride in his family - especially his two children. I will also hope that, given the nature of what they both had chosen to pursue in life, that they had acknowledged the possibility of something like this occurring at the very beginning and had prepared for it as well as one can. His children will have some very large shoes to fill as they get older and it is difficult to imagine they will not also be as passionate and alive as their father was during his lifetime.

His life was too short, his death tragic and odd beyond words, but Steve Irwin truly touched the world and all of its inhabitants in a very special and powerful way and no one can take that away from either Steve or his family. My thoughts and prayers are with all of his family this week as they gather and mourn their loss and try to pick up the shattered memories of a man they all knew well and loved dearly. I hope God is very kind to them today and in the days to come.

On to the strange companion my mind created for the tribute above:

Sometimes, when he hasn't taken the time to think or ask, my nephew will still come out with little words and phrases that really grab the imagination. This is something he has done since he was first learning to talk and his mother and aunts and Grampy have derived a lot of amusement from his little glitches. Imagine my delight when his mother imparted this little gem to me - Patty and the kids were in the car when Brad accused her of driving erratically, only this is not the way it came out. What he actually said to her was that she was driving "erotically." Patty, being one of a trio of evil sisters, immediately broke into her own rendition of that wierd song, "I'm Too Sexy." This of course embarrassed the children, but they all had fun with it and the matter was forgotten until Patty mentioned it to me. (Hee, hee, hee!) Of course, I was off and running with it, as the thought of erotic driving actually has a great deal of a rather peculiar appeal. (Ohhhh, yes, yes! Mmmmh hmmmm! Oh, oh, oh! Hey, out of the way, Road Hog!) Well, anyway, you can at least sort of get the picture. This is typical of much of the amusement we all derive from life and from one another. It is not derisive in nature nor is it intended as any sort of criticism. It is just a part of the fun a loving family has together and it is a part of what lets each of us know how special we are to the family as a whole. Of course Brad blushed and laughed as Auntie Liz carried on for a moment or two and then threatened to write about it (hee, hee, hee!), but he is a pretty good sport about being teased unmercifully by the female branch of his family, so he survived.

In looking over these two seemingly diverse topics, I think I see why they have stayed in my thoughts so intimately entwined, they are both about families; one mine, the other of someone I have never met. Although it is unlikely such a loss to my family would ever touch Steve Irwin's family, there is a bond, nevertheless, and I know how they are feeling as we have lost loved ones as well. That seemingly insignificant episode of teasing between mother and son, aunt and nephew, is a large part of what has been taken from the Irwin family this week. Great moments create history but it is those funny, silly, precious moments of mistakes, acceptance and laughter together that really define our relationships and it is all of those moments, now stilled forever, of interplay between Steve and his family - particularly his children - that are gone forever. I imagine that, at some future date, should his son decide to follow his sister in following their father's footsteps, that the world will watch as the young man, son of the famous Steve Irwin, demonstrates that, though wild, stingrays are actually very fascinating creatures as long as you are able to understand them and respect their space. You see, the true legacy of a man like Steve Irwin is not that his children will seek revenge against the species that caused his demise, but that they will strive to understand it, communicate with it, and protect it as the natural treasure it is to this world. They will know absolutely that the stingray that killed their dad was only panicking, trying to escape and survive, and had no wish to deprive the whole of humanity and the natural world of one of their greatest advocates.