Surprising Sadness

You might be surprised to find out that I am actually rather sad at the untimely death of Anna Nicole Smith. We certainly didn't have much in common, and in general, I kind of thought of her as a punchline. But when I heard that she'd passed away, I felt an unexpected sense of loss and grief. Not because I admired or even approved or her or her choices, not because I knew her or followed her career or anything like that. It's because it's a tragic end to the life of a person who, I really believe, spent her 40 years looking for meaning, for purpose, for love - and not ever really finding any happiness. A small town stripper, single mom, courted and married by a billionaire - she probably thought her prince had arrived. Regardless of if they were in love as we would know it, I believe they probably understood each other - if she brought her octogenarian husband some happiness in his later years and he wanted to will her some of his vast fortunes - what's wrong with that? Decades later, she still was still litigating it, having been broke and shilling clothes for fat people on a home shopping network. She's been beautiful and desired, she's been fat and a laughing stock. She tried acting and modeling, with limited success, and I'd say it was pretty obvious she never loved herself. Whether she and her son were estranged is something only they really know, but he was with her when she bore his half-sister - and when he died. Even if they hadn't been as tight as they could have been, does that make it less painful for a mother to lose her child? And then paternity battles for her new daughter? I wondered if she'd gotten pregnant "accidentally on purpose" in the hopes that one of the men currently claiming the baby would marry her - was it the lawyer who did step up? Or maybe the prince who has come forward - did she hope to finally be a princess and maybe, maybe feel like a princess? I'm sad for Anna Nicole because I think hers was a life of loud and public desperation. I do not consider her evil or even a bad person, I don't really think she was greedy in the way her former step-son suggests. I feel that she, like so many other people in this world, ached for love and hope and significance and worth; she just didn't know better than to look for it in money and fame. And that's why I'm sad.