Pale death, with impartial step, knocks at the hut of the poor and the towers of kings.
— Horace, 65 - 8 BC
While death eventually comes for us all, this has been an especially tough year on celebrities. Film and TV has lost Katherine Hepburn, Bob Hope, Gregory Peck, Elia Kazan — even Jed Clampett, Mr. Rogers and the Maytag repairman. Music and dance will miss Gregory Hines, June Carter and Johnny Cash, Barry White and Warren Zevon (a personal favourite). Add Leon Uris, Althea Gibson, George Plimpton, David Brinkley, John Ritter, Sam Phillips . . . et al. There have been so many celebrity deaths of late that it’s been hard to keep up.
But what does it say about us that we seem to care more about deaths of famous folks than we do about the thousands of people who die every day from famine, disease or natural disasters, or are murdered through war or terrorism? It has to do with familiarity, of course. I hate to admit it, but when my dog died this fall, I was more crestfallen than when I hear about violent, senseless deaths on the other side of the world. Although none of us actually knew Bob Hope or Johnny Cash, their presence on our TVs or CD players made it feel like we did — unlike more tragic but distant victims. Joseph Stalin unfortunately knew this too well; as he put it, “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”
This is a built-in defense mechanism. We couldn’t function if we grieved all human suffering. And in the simplest evolutionary terms, our progenitors’ instinct for caring most about the survival of themselves, their mates and progeny both kept them alive and was bequeathed to us.
Our network of alumni is, pardon the cliché, akin to an extended family.
Therefore, relating news of the deaths of fellow graduates is an important
function for this or any alumni magazine. Our obituary section, In
Memoriam, tells you of the passing of people you may have known
or, at least, with whom you shared something, as fellow alumni of
Sir George, Loyola or Concordia. Our In Memoriam section has always
been smaller than those of many similarly sized Canadian universities
because our alums are relatively young.
But as the university ages, an unfortunate consequence will be that we’ll lose more alumni, and receive more death notices. This issue includes news of the passing of 13 alumni, the most to appear in any issue since I’ve been here, and a consequence of our maturation. The names on page 35 may not be celebrities, but each of these individuals meant very much to their families and friends — and former classmates — and we mourn them all.
Of course life must go on, and it’s been going quite well at Concordia. These past few months have been tremendous for the university, with record enrolments and the opening of the Richard J. Renaud Science Complex on the Loyola Campus. This special issue will highlight just some of the noteworthy research and teaching being done at the Complex and elsewhere at the university, and looks at a few of our successful science alums. These scientists are helping fight disease, save the environment and uncover the mysteries of human biology. In other words, they’re working to make our world better and our lives healthier and longer.
Which is a good thing, because as Woody Allen once said, “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve it through not dying.”
