Immortality

When a celebrity dies, you get a certain satisfaction from his/her death. Not like a gratitude that he or she is dead, but a completion of their work. A sense of, "Well, I'm never gonna hear from that person again." Because a celebrity is someone that you know, but you don't really know, that person's death means something to you, but not something that means altering your own personal life. It may mean a thought, a change in current attitude, but it does not alter one's self as it would if it were a close friend, relative, or personal idol.
That being said, three people have died in the past week that have all had altering significance in my life. First was Mitch Hedberg, who in his own right was a young tragedy, much like Buddy Holly or John F. Kennedy. He died before his time was up, and in doing so, shorted the world of much more potential than what he had already provided. Mitch Hedberg was a hilarious comedian and died of natural causes, unlike the other two aforementioned unfortunate casualties.
Terri Schiavo also died in the past week, and it was only in her dying process that she became known to me. In this world of modern technology and powerful life-saving devices that we have, Terri Schiavo was a victim of natural causes who was then led to live by unnatural means for the proceeding years. In the largest judicial case of its kind ever to have existed, the decision was finally made to pull her "plug" and she was allowed to die, despite the state of living she was in. I personally am unsure how to feel about her case, as it was so controversial and spread upon the thin line of political position on which I tread, but I am sure that she is in a safer more comfortable place now, than she was in only a few short hours ago, even though the decision-makers of her fate may not be in the future. But it is not in my place to decide, and that is where the last of the celebrity obituaries of this week fit in.
The ultimate power that may or may not be, allowed the Pope, the leader of the Catholic Church to die this week. It is the first time in my lifetime that I have witnessed the passing of a pope. It is an event that is new to me, and something that will remain with me forever. The pope is figure that has always been in my life, never changing, never ceasing to be the same person as it was when it started. I grew up seeing pictures of the pope, and every time seeing him afterwards, I never noticed him changing very much. Even when I saw the Pope live in St. Louis, I didn't think of him as anything but the pope.
A position like the Pope does not change frequently, and when it does, it takes a force only nature can provide. Maybe that is why the Pope represents such a powerful position. The Pope does not represent someone that everyone can relate to, he does not represent someone that everyone can look up to, he does not represent someone that a lot of people can vote for. He is the chosen of the chosen, the one who is decided upon by a higher power, one too powerful for any of us lay folk to take a part of. And that's why we can all look up to the Pope with such respect; because we know that somewhere out there, there is someone or something more powerful than we can imagine, and its embodiment on Earth commands just that much respect. Pope John Paul II is no longer Pope, but he will always be my Pope. He is the Pope I have always known, and in that way, he is just that much immortal.