Legacies

Every day people die.  Actually every minute of every hour.  As the year goes by the Entertainment section of Google News will have a story about a different celebrity that has passed on.  For me , some of the older ones that have died (Florence Henderson for example), didn't have quite the impact as when Robin Williams died.  That one and ironically Dan Haggerty (He was known for the show The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams back in the seventies).  Robin Williams was one of my all time favorite comedians and the first actor I grew up watching to pass away.  I had that moment where I'll never forget where I was.  On vacation, in Gaylord, Michigan, getting ready to get into a car.  Dan Haggerty, known as Grizzly Adams, was the origin of my email address.   I was also dubbed Grizzly Adams by my cousin because I had grown a beard so I had a kinship with him.  Heck,  even  when The Force Awakens came out and Han Solo died (Oops.  Spoiler alert) I felt as though I'd lost a friend.  But I digress.

 This week Alan Thicke passed away.  He was sixty-nine.  Five years older then my parents and twenty-five years older than me.  I grew up watching Growing Pains.  He was an actor I "knew" well.  A friend.  Or at least his character was.   I'm at the age (forty-two) where the actors I grew up watching are starting to take get to an age where they are more likely to leave this world.  In watching the news feed surrounding Alan Thicke's death what has been so cool to see is to see the positive mark he left on the world.  How cool is it that the last thing he was doing was playing a pick-up game of hockey with his son?  Spending time with family.  What a way to go.  Almost like going in your sleep.  I only hope that I can leave behind that kind of legacy.  My hope for him though is that when he entered the next world he was ready because if he wasn't then all the positive things he did here, while great, would mean nothing.  However, that is not for us to know.