Link: Thought Theater: Anna Nicole Smith Dead at 39.
I'm not quite sure why the world is fascinated with Anna Nicole Smith. Just yesterday, I happened upon "Entertainment Tonight" and saw yet another segment of the ongoing saga of Anna Nicole's latest controversy. I even said to my husband, "How could a news show - albeit an entertainment news show - devote (waste) so much time to a woman who clearly is very troubled AND drugged out in every interview.
As a new mom, I was especially saddened to see Anna Nicole's little baby in the middle of a paternity controversy at such a young age. And having an addict for a mother - not newsworthy, just incredibly sad.
Then my husband - the guy who never watches TV unless I "force" him to watch one of my favorite shows, the guy who knows nothing about celebrity gossip - sends me an email titled "Mortality" and asking me if the woman we saw on TV last night who seemed so drugged out was actually dead or if it was a rumor.
I did a quick search on Google to find that yes, indeed, Anna Nicole Smith was dead.
Why are people so obsessed/fascinated with her? I think she perpetuated the "unwanted" attention from media, fed off of it, and in some convoluted way, her death is just part of her overall view of herself and her life (ala Marilyn Monroe).
I really don't want to devote any more time to this. I just thought it was ironic after the post I wrote yesterday. Here's a woman with celebrity, money, a new family, and she threw it all away. Deep down inside, she was a wounded person, hurting and alone.
A woman I know killed herself.
I don't know all the details, and I didn't even know she had died until someone told me last week by email and then I didn't find out about the visitation until the following week.
I didn't know her very well - I couldn't say we were friends. We were colleagues. She and I worked together on the Anchorage Film Festival in 2005.
She also worked for one of my clients so during the last months of my pregnancy, as I waddled through the halls of their offices, she'd stop me as I passed her desk, put her hand on my belly, and talk to me about her pregnancies years ago and ask me about mine.
She was a no-nonsense person who seemed ever more serious. Very matter of fact, pull no punches, you know the cliches and the type. I really liked her because I knew exactly where she was coming from, and I knew if she said she was going to do something, she would do it. She was the kind of person that could come into a mess and roll up her sleeves to get things cleaned up with the minimum of emotion.
But she was a tender and caring person beneath the tough, crusty exterior. Her eyes would well up when we'd talk about pregnancy and babies. I thought we connected on several levels. Then we lost touch when I stopped working before giving birth. I hadn't seen her in the months following as I struggled with new motherhood and post partum depression.
I've heard rumors that something bad happened that may have been the final catalyst for her suicide. But I've also heard that even a month earlier she was giving things away, tying up loose ends, doing the things that people do when they are contemplating killing themselves. Little signs, little gestures, that actually looking back seem huge and telling.
I can't help wondering if I would have noticed the signs if I had stayed in touch with her. If I had emailed her when I thought of her recently, could we have reconnected and would anything be different? We always take for granted the people in our lives and the impact we have or could have. We fail to do the small things, the contact and connection.
And then someone kills themself.
And you can't help wondering if you could have done something, anything, to change their mind.
