Touching Sadness

Today Paul Carson died.

Just a few hours ago actually, just down the street from me in our little hospital.

I don't know him from Adam.  Probably saw him on TV sometime in the '80s, certainly listen to his radio station often enough. But in no way can I say that I know him.

And yet, all afternoon, driving around, I listened to the various broadcasters on the Team1040 processing their own grief, knowing as they did that he was dying. Grown-up, successful, sports-all-day-thinking men crying on the radio because a friend, the man who had launched many of their careers, a guy they knew... he was dying and it was sad and I was so sad too.  Even though I didn't know him.

So tonight when I see on my facebook page that indeed he has died and I know that there is this anonymous, not-mine grief out there, I wonder about why I want to creep so close to it, taste it a bit and maybe sit under it for a while. 

I think that my grief lives in one of the many rooms in my brain (remember all those empty rooms from a few months ago? down the hall from there...) and when I hear these stories, it's like knocking on the door of the room, maybe even cracking the door a bit, and trying all the different griefs I've left lying around in there. And maybe it has a hint of innoculation about it too - if I let myself enjoy this lovely anonymous-not-mine grief, it will somehow protect me from having to face some kind of future HOLY SHIT I CAN'T DO THIS grief later on.

I don't know.  I do know that tonight a family is sad, and a bunch of sports guys are sad and while I'm not truly sad, the part of me that is sad for the sad is a bit sad too.  I guess that's how it works.