Post by Jeff on Sept 5, 2006 2:38:52 GMT -5
When I was seven, I had my first hero: Bruce Jenner. I cut his image from Wheaties boxes, I practiced as many decathlon events as I could in my yard. For a day or two I was as fast as anyone I knew. And it really was because of my dedication to trying to be like this particular human being. Maddie has had a hero since she was old enough to remember: Steve Irwin. And his death has been a blow to our whole family.
I was never a great fan of Steve’s showboating. You didn’t get nearly enough science from him, but there was always Jeff Corwin and the internet for that. Steve did something more important than any mere collection of facts: He gave off a contagious joy about the world of animals. His obvious passion for wildlife was the reason Maddie watched him, the reason that she wants to be a zoologist today.
More and more I think that it is exactly Steve’s kind of active love that rules the world. You don’t have to be a super intellect. You don’t have to explain everything. You just have to love something with everything in you and take that love back to the world. Steve did that. He talked fast and said a lot of silly things. You laughed at him as much as with him. But he didn’t care because he was doing what he loved to do. He was just pleased that you were watching. And my family watched a lot. Animal Planet is Maddie’s favorite channel on TV. She watches it every day when she gets home from school.
Emily loves Steve, too. She still doesn’t understand that he is dead. She just watched the retrospective on AP tonight and said, “What do those numbers (1962-2006) under Steve mean?” It’s strange because we hadn’t really thought about the possibility of Steve’s death. He was invincible. We knew that he was doing death defying things, so he could (possibly) die. But he wouldn’t, because his risks were intentional; they were for us. He knew that people tuned in to see what “that crazy guy” was doing. But before they changed the channel they had learned that snakes and spiders and crocs need love too.
If you didn’t know, Steve died doing some “soft” work for a children’s show for his daughter. It wasn’t like he was doing any purposefully dangerous stunts. He was just minding his business when he accidentally stepped over the large stingray that killed him. That bothers Maddie…and me, too.
When you are young, you realize that people die for reasons. They die for causes or because they are old. But the absurdity of death had never really occurred to Maddie. Tonight as she looked at Steve’s numbers, she suspected universal radical contingency. And my pride for her was tempered by my pity. Steve’s last great lesson.
I was never a great fan of Steve’s showboating. You didn’t get nearly enough science from him, but there was always Jeff Corwin and the internet for that. Steve did something more important than any mere collection of facts: He gave off a contagious joy about the world of animals. His obvious passion for wildlife was the reason Maddie watched him, the reason that she wants to be a zoologist today.
More and more I think that it is exactly Steve’s kind of active love that rules the world. You don’t have to be a super intellect. You don’t have to explain everything. You just have to love something with everything in you and take that love back to the world. Steve did that. He talked fast and said a lot of silly things. You laughed at him as much as with him. But he didn’t care because he was doing what he loved to do. He was just pleased that you were watching. And my family watched a lot. Animal Planet is Maddie’s favorite channel on TV. She watches it every day when she gets home from school.
Emily loves Steve, too. She still doesn’t understand that he is dead. She just watched the retrospective on AP tonight and said, “What do those numbers (1962-2006) under Steve mean?” It’s strange because we hadn’t really thought about the possibility of Steve’s death. He was invincible. We knew that he was doing death defying things, so he could (possibly) die. But he wouldn’t, because his risks were intentional; they were for us. He knew that people tuned in to see what “that crazy guy” was doing. But before they changed the channel they had learned that snakes and spiders and crocs need love too.
If you didn’t know, Steve died doing some “soft” work for a children’s show for his daughter. It wasn’t like he was doing any purposefully dangerous stunts. He was just minding his business when he accidentally stepped over the large stingray that killed him. That bothers Maddie…and me, too.
When you are young, you realize that people die for reasons. They die for causes or because they are old. But the absurdity of death had never really occurred to Maddie. Tonight as she looked at Steve’s numbers, she suspected universal radical contingency. And my pride for her was tempered by my pity. Steve’s last great lesson.
