Good Mourning

On April 22nd, 2017, an actress passed away.  Erin Moran, AKA Joanie from "Happy Days" and the ill-fated spin-off "Joanie Loves Chachi" died from a short battle from cancer.  She had a history with addiction and it cost her dearly in life.

Upon her death, there was a lot of the typical condolences that one would typically expect from a death of a human being.  But then there was a lot of ones that made her out to be deserving of her death because of the drugs she used to do.

Now, ironically, upon finding out that she died of an especially aggressive cancer and that no drugs were in her system when she died, people retracted their statements.  People backtracked and tried offering their support even though just a few days before, they had attacked her for her drug use and talked of how she deserved her end.

Upon her death, the press hounded her widowed husband mercilessly.  The sheriff had to chase people away to even attempt to give him some time to grieve.  This was a man who was only really known as the husband of Erin Moran.  He wasn't a celebrity and he had some periods of homelessness.

He eventually released a statement to the press (pretty much was forced to, if you ask me) via Facebook where he talked about his final months with his wife.  He talked about it in detail (for any of those who cared to know).  He did this as a way to finally be left alone and to hopefully get a little  peace out of all of this.

But why did it come to this???  What happened to respect for the deceased??  Now, we live in a day and age where no one has compassion to the deceased any more.  Oh, this woman died, "Must have been the drugs."  "She got what she deserved."  "For me, you do drugs or drink, you're gonna die. I'm sorry if that's cold, but God gave you a brain, gave you the will to live and thrive and you gotta take care of yourself." 

After finding out about the cancer, these people were quick to retract, and rescind their comments, but the lack of respect is appalling.  I hope that when I die, people actually care at all, instead of finding some reason that I deserved to die.  It doesn't make the mourning any easier to justify someone's death because of problems they had in their lives.

To the family of Erin Moran, I hope you get some comfort out of this.  I hope she gets the respect she deserves, and RIP Erin Moran.  To the people who had no class but to bash her in death, have some respect.  You need some more compassion in your life.