The wrong people die

Gorbachev, Queen Elizabeth — within a couple of weeks. Sad, but they were old, and their deaths were not shocking.

Earlier today my son asked me about the deaths of famous people that were shocking.

We all thought of Koby Bryant a couple of years ago.

My wife mentioned Princess Diana.

I thought of Steve Jobs. Not that I was inspired by Steve Jobs (or any business figure for that matter), but I was touched by the news of his passing. I wasn’t an early adopter of iPhone but Apple’s iPod Nano radically improved the quality of my life. My running! I’m a passionate lover of running and music. I’m grateful to Jobs for putting thousands of songs in my pocket and in my headphones.

I thought of my childhood icon Viktor Tsoi, a Russian rock musician who died tragically in 1990. I didn’t mention him to my son — my Americanized kids wouldn’t know much about my Soviet childhood. I tell them stories, but they will never truly understand them — and it’s ok.

Who else can I think of?

As I said, I’m a huge fan of pop and rock music so I can think of Freddie Mercury. I don't actually like Queen that much but I remember how I heard the news. I was having breakfast in the kitchen of our apartment in Moscow, getting ready to to go school. I’d known Queen well — their records played a lot in our family in the eighties, even when there were few signs of the Iron Curtain coming down.