Goody, goody for Jade Goody

The unhappiness machine is in full swing I see. Apparently a commentator has declared how disgraceful that someone should be dying of cancer at the tender age of 27. The newspapers are having a field day over the suffering and tragedy of it all and the brave way in which Jade is coping. Well I can't detract from the last part: cancer has done what Big Brather failed to do, reveal the human inside the monster. But the rest of the saga is a sad reflection on the illnesses and cancer of our very society.

People die. It's a fact. Its more than a fact, the ticket to life has a ticket to death printed on the back. We each carry both. Jade is in no circumstance different from our own. If there is pity for her, there should be equal pity for us. The only difference is that she is "only" 27 and may leave 2 children without a mother (she's not dead till it happens, and I may die in a road accident today so lets just look at life for now). This "only" is the problem. Where in all the universe does it say that we "should" live longer than 27? There are statistics maybe; so she's a rarity; and the problem with being a rarity was?

Its because this society views death as a bad thing. It has been used by politicians and kings since the dawn of time as the ultimate demontsration of power. I suppose this way it is associate dwith criminality. But didn't Jesus put the record straight on that? Death is the ending of something that was given free of charge in the first place - who are we to demand "more" life any more than we should demand less life - of ourselves or another (i.e. suicide or murder). Any life we get is good and that is all we can say. To die a criminal death on the cross at 33 is of no consequence when we have lived a good life in the eyes of God - that is all that matters. If we have lived a bad life, then the suffering is ours it is true, because a bad life by definition is a selfish life and then the loss of life to a self-serving selfish person is a most difficult thing for sure! But if we can let go gracefully then it is a good life, and the happiness and ternal freedom is ours.

So hopefully in her reality there is nothing extraordinary about what she goes through, it is the path we all must walk, she is just the soldier of her generation that walks before the rest. And if she can let this life go as easily as it came, then happiness is hers. For her children they start life with a profound lesson on the transience of this world and hopefully a wisdom that will help them when they face death themselves. For material needs we still thankfully live in a state that respects a commons sense sentiment that the fortune of the many is shared with the few, and the misfortune of the few is shared with the many so that each one of us has richer neighbours and when misfortune strikes us we have our neighbours to help us.

As John Dunne so famously meditated, "ask not for whome the bell tolls for it tolls for thee.".