When our heroes leave us
What a week, right? A painful one for a lot of us. The legendary Dolly Parton, Tim Curry and as I write this even the original Optimus Prime actor Peter Cullen all in the space of a few days. It feels like we only just lost Hayden Panettiere and Sam Neill too.
When someone in the public eye passes, it can really throw us, and acknowledging that impact can feel daft, or inauthentic in some way. It’s not like we knew them personally. We aren’t family members and way may never have exchanged two words with them, so why is it hitting us so hard?
Perhaps the biggest death of recent years was Queen Elizabeth II. Regardless of how you might feel about the monarchy the Queen was a fixture in millions of peoples lives. She might have been someone who our parents admired when we were kids. She was part of the background in our stories when we look back at what might have been calmer times. With her death, we lost that living anchor to our past.
More recently Dolly Parton was someone who was universally beloved. Someone who not only entertained us with her music and acting, but was vocally supportive of the LGBTQ+ community, sent free books to children to encourage a love of reading and even provided funding for Covid vaccine research. (She also quietly produced Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a fact I only recently found out myself). Imagine being remembered for so much kindness!
Tim Curry’s legendary Frank-N-Furter changes lives every day. His terrifying Pennywise gave many of us nightmares, and Cullen’s Optimus Prime kicked off the weekend for any kid who woke up early on Saturday morning in the ‘80s for the cartoons.
When a celebrity dies it often feels out of the blue. We’re not in the loop in the way that we would be and we rarely get a sense that it’s coming. We admired them, it can feel like we know them and they’ve been part of our lives for years.
The media can make things even more intense and it can feel like their death is everywhere. If they were a musician, their songs might always on the radio. The news tells us that something is disrespectful and we should be doing this and not that. Social media can become a place where what feels like competitive grief or performative grief has taken over. Whoever it was meant more to me than you etc, and sometimes even the worst people can claim a special connection to someone and everyone gets angry.
Give yourself permission to grieve. Take a break from the news and social media if you have to.
Let yourself reconnect with what is was about them you loved, be it something that they stood for, or a piece of music or film that’s part of a favourite memory.
That connection that you had with them is part of your own personal story and it’s yours and yours alone. It matters. Let yourself acknowledge their passing and what they meant to you and take care of yourself.
If you’d like to work with me on your mental health, you can get in touch with me via the website or directly at mckellar.scott@gmail.com
