Heath Ledger's Passing

Heath died last Tuesday afternoon. I found out when I refreshed my Facebook Home screen and saw that Seth Galena had mentioned his passing as his Status Update. That was at 4:56 PM, only two hours after he was pronounced dead. Hell, Heath's family members may not even have heard in that amount of time. And then the stories began pouring out in the media. He OD'ed. He committed suicide. He was surrounded by pills. Or my favorite, he was found lying on the floor naked. People, come on. He was found by his masseuse and housekeeper lying in bed. When they tried to rouse him they realized there was trouble. When the EMTS arrived they took him out of the bed and put him on the floor. There were pills in the room. All prescribed and in their correct pill bottles. The way the media convoluted the story made us all think he was found sprawled out on his bedroom floor with pill capsules around his body. Let the man die with a little dignity. The meds he did have (sleeping pills, anxiety medication), hell thats stuff that almost every New Yorker has a prescription for. It doesn't mean if you have it you abuse it. I'd prefer to not accuse him of abusing drugs and overdosing. This is the dude that when in the tabloids it wasn't partying and acting stupid. He was the guy carrying his two-year-old daughter on his shoulders. Drinking coffee at a cafe. Ordering water at a club. Some people just die. Untimely as it might be, it does happen. When you're not a doctor you don't know if your sleeping pill might not be good to take if you have a cold. Your anxiety medicine might have a bad interaction with grapefruit juice (true story, by the way). He may have had a heart defect. Who the hell knows. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt here. It might bite me in the behind if test results come back positive of anything not kosher. But this guy really touched me with some of his roles. He was in several of my favorite movies. I still remember which theater I saw 10 Things I Hate About You at, who I saw it with, and where we went for a bite to eat after. That was 9 years ago. Silly as it seems, I really dug it. I wanted to write all this pent up annoyance all week but I just couldn't find the time. Then today I was flipping channels and I saw that Brokeback Mountain was on. Its the first time I saw him on screen since he passed away. He was so damn talented and had decades left of creativity in him that we are never going to see. That made me very sad. Only a couple actors each generation have that gift. And we just lost one. Rest in Peace Heath.