Two powerful iconic men – Steve Jobs, technology visionary, and Fred Shuttlesworth, Civil Rights movement activist – died this week. While Shuttlesworth’s death was certainly mourned and reported on, it was Jobs’ death at age 56 that received the lion’s share of global attention. Over the course of the week, I swirled in and out of a few social network-based conversations about these men, their merits and faults and impact. In one conversation, a debate-loving friend argued that Jobs should be remembered as a (I’m paraphrasing) anti-democratic corporate fascist whose business practices hurt the third world.
As someone who upon learning of Jobs’ death changed her Facebook profile pic to the rainbow-striped Macintosh Apple image, I disagreed with what I felt was a simplistic assessment. The friend then countered, and I absolutely did agree with him on this next point, that more should be done to remember Shuttlesworth, a powerful engine of the Civil Rights movement who hailed from and worked mighty wonders in Birmingham, Alabama. Then followed a condemnation the American people for shallow priorities. It didn’t feel like that conversation was going anywhere productive. In the mind of the friend, any attention given to Jobs was taken from Shuttlesworth.
Into this fray came the voice of a bright woman, reminding everyone that mourning is not an either/or activity. She said, “Each death has its own gravity.”
Profound words to my ears.
The gravity of these men’s deaths includes, for me, a keen sense of public loss, acknowledging that both Shuttlesworth and Jobs improved the world so as to make our 2011 existences better and fairer. There is also personal appreciation for Jobs’ innovations and deep admiration of Shuttlesworth’s tenacity and bravery. But though last, there is also a reminder (that is certainly not least), of mortality.
Some might in turn condemn me for being shallow or self-absorbed in thinking of my own death upon hearing the news of the loss of these men. But an enhanced awareness of mortality based on observations of death in the world around us is the theme of one of my favorite poems ever, “Spring and Fall: to a Young Child” written by Gerard Manley Hopkins, an Anglican priest writing beautifully of God, faith and the natural world during the nineteenth century:
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
Indeed, “sorrow’s springs are the same.” We live, we love, we lose, we die. In all honesty, sometimes the whole process feels futile, empty, hollow. One man is dead at 89, another at 56. And in other corners of the world, children, young people, mothers, others are taken too soon in that “blight man was born for.” As the young girl sees the dead leaves fall, she sees too the cycle of life and death as it will manifest itself in her existence, a cycle over which she does not have control.
A bit gloomy, to be sure.
But even as I agree with Hopkins that sorrow’s springs are all the same, I also agree that our knowledge of death, our awareness of its cold constancy can be a spring of joy and gratitude. And so I remember one of my other favorite poems, a little lush ditty by The Flaming Lips, the song “Do You Realize?” from the seminal 2002 album, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. As Wayne Coyne reminds me, our knowledge of death’s inevitability should also make us cry with happiness and hold tighter the people we love.
Each death has its own gravity. And perhaps each death, whether a lion or a cub, can give weight to the life that does remain. I am grateful to Steve Jobs and Fred Shuttlesworth – and I want to do more and do better in the time that is left to me.
Lyrics:
Do You Realize – that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize – we’re floating in space
Do You Realize – that happiness makes you cry
Do You Realize – that everyone you know someday will die
And instead of saying all of your goodbyes – let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It’s hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn’t go down
It’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round
Do You Realize – Oh – Oh – Oh
Do You Realize – that everyone you know
Someday will die
Erin! A favorite poet and song in one post, love it. I think death unites us, it is the thing that comes to us all no matter who or what we are, the thing we cannot control. But, I find this strangely comforting, accepting the truth of it makes me feel connected to other human beings in a very profound way. And just as every “death has its own gravity,” each life has its own buoyancy, its own potential for lightness and joy.