A Collection of Ghosts

I opened up my MSNBC news page today and found this brief blurb in the entertainment section: Travolta Still Struggling with Son's Death.

My first thought was, "well, duh." It's only been six months. My second thought was that the story was brief, tasteful, and obviously a way for the site to get a mention in of the tragedy, because people want to know how they're doing, even though we all know they're struggling without having to be told. I guess we want to know that the Travolta's, while struggling, are able to cope with life while they grieve. We want them to be on the right track, not the track that leads off into endless despair and the ditch.

The death of a family member, or the death even of a close friend, is one that none of us ever "get over." But we do learn to incorporate that death into our life and carry on. Death is, as they say, part of life. None of us will escape an ancounter with it. And the older we get, the greater our personal collection of ghosts grows, travelling with us and enriching our own life by reminding us how fleeting it all is.