Heath and Death

I was searching through the top of my closet for some tissue paper to wrap a gift and out comes tumbling a poster that I completely forgot I had. It's the movie poster for The Brothers Grimm that was given to me one summer after I interned for Miramax/Dimension Films. And why is this weird? Because it stars none other than Heath Ledger. So I unrolled it and there's Heath staring straight at me.



For some reason, I'm having the absolute worst time dealing with this. Other people have died and it hasn't affected me one bit other than the usual "oh that's too bad." Why do I get so incredibly sad when I think about it?! I didn't know the guy. Is it because he's the first major star my age to die? Is it because I had a little crush on him in the early part of college after 10 Things I Hate About You (along with every girl I know who has seen it)? Is it because I keep thinking about that cute little mini-Heath (aka Matilda) that I always saw pictures of him doting on? Is it because I was discovering what a tremendous actor he actually was and now I won't get to see anymore?

I just don't know. All I know is it's affected me more than I ever would have thought had you posed this hypothetical to me a few years ago. Maybe it's because I've never really had to deal with death in my adult life. When I was 10, two kids in my grade died and that was the first time I had ever experienced death. The first was Jennifer Carter. She had been one of my best friends over the first few years of elementary school and had been battling leukemia pretty much her whole life. I can remember exactly where I was when I found out she died. It was Christmas day and my brother and I were playing Nintendo because that was our big gift that year. The phone rang and my mom answered it and I can remember my brother looking at me saying something about the game but all that was running through my head was that Jennifer was dead. It's weird how, even at 10, I just had that gut feeling of knowing exactly what that phone call was about. Then my mom got off the phone and sat me down and told me what happened. I remember being in shock at first, and then just sobbing. I don't remember if I started sobbing right away or if it took time for me to process it all. I just remember sobbing uncontrollably. And this continued off and on for several weeks afterward. Then as I was getting over that, another kid in my class was in a car wreck and was killed. Now it's hard enough for a 10 year old to process one death, but two within about 6 weeks of one another is just too much. I can just remember crying a lot the rest of that school year as I slowly learned to process my emotions and deal with death. I even get choked up now thinking back on it, especially when I think about Jennifer. But what I realize now is that was honestly the toughest time in my entire life. Other things have happened that have been tough to deal with, but nothing that's exceeded that time of my life in sheer emotional exhaustion. And now as I'm writing this, I'm really starting to think that this was around the time that I started to close myself off. I used to be a pretty affectionate kid, but at some point I just stopped. My mom always asked what happened to her little girl who used to freely dispense hugs and "I love you's"? My answer has always been puberty! And while that probably had a lot to do with it too, I've also always been an emotional introvert. I don't freely give hugs. I don't say "I love you" without feeling incredibly uncomfortable. It's like I don't want to get attached because I have this constant fear that people will leave in some form or another. And I don't want to ever deal again with the emotion and exhaustion I experienced that Winter/Spring of 1991. And surprisingly enough, I didn't have to deal with death (other than a few friend's parents passing away and a couple of people in high school that I didn't really know) until two of my grandparents passed away in the last 5 years. And while I was sad about that and I do miss them, it didn't really sucker-punch me because we weren't all that close. So I'm still waiting around to really deal with that death that just takes the wind out of you. And I can see it approaching ever closer, and I dread the day that happens because it will be the first time I have to process through all of these emotions that I've essentially closed off since I was 10. And that's just a scary thing to think about when you've been an emotion bottler for most of your life!

I originally intended for this post to simply be about Heath, but I diverged a bit. So let me get back on track. Why am I so upset about his death? Likely because it's made me think about death and all that crap I just talked about (see how I'm deflecting attention away from my emotions? It's a pretty dang good skill!). Heath was on his way to being one of the greats of our generation. He was phenomenal in Brokeback Mountain - and yes, I did see Brokeback Mountain, but I'll save that topic for another post. And I've been anxiously awaiting the new Batman film after seeing the first teaser trailer and hearing the Joker's laugh. If you've yet to see the new trailer for The Dark Knight, you should check it out. I can't wait to see the film, mainly because Heath's Joker seems to be remarkable. It will be the coda of a young man's promising career cut tragically short.