| | | Mike Erickson points out: "I think Steve Irwin lived more in his 44 years than 200 years of the lives most people choose for themselves." |
I also think it's worth remembering that he was rich, famous, at the top of his field, and beloved worldwide.
He was a unique person, with an original career, and a life-style unlike any other. He led a magnificently fun, exciting, and dangerous life, with an immense variety of spills, chills, and thrills.
I think Steve probably cheated death a hundred times. He basically laughed at the Grim Reaper. Not many can say that!
And he had a zest for living and joie de vivre which matched his daring, will, and courage.
In his time, Steve Irwin also managed to marry a good woman who tolerated and even appreciated his strange line of work. And he had two kids -- a boy(2) and a girl(8). And Steve neatly avoided the sullen, ungrateful, rebellious, teenage years in them.
He also deftly avoided cancer, heart attack, and stroke -- not to mention the indignity of arthritis, incontinence, and impotence.
Steve died "with his boots on" and doing what he loved best. He died as a man, a dynamo, and a hero.
As Robert Bidinotto noted yesterday: "Steve Irwin had an extraordinary sense of life. His ebullient optimism, boundless self-confidence, and unquenchable passion for his work were infectious..."
Steve Irwin was probably one of the few men who could say, with the chivalric, heroic knights of yore:
I fought my fight
I lived my life
I drank my share of wine
From Troy to Tangier
'Twas never a knight
Led a merrier life than mine
|
|
