Just plain sad

LEAVE A COMMENT 2010 February 13

When his mother asked him to admit his greatest fear, forty-year-old British fashion designer, Alexander McQueen, said “dying before you.”

An odd and unnatural reaction for a grown man to worry more about his mother’s feelings than about himself.

Joyce McQueen died almost two weeks ago. Her talented and devoted son hanged himself the other day. He took to his bed after his mom died and stayed there. Apparenty, he was as distraught at losing her as he knew she’d be losing him.

It’s not supposed to work that way. Mothers are supposed to worry about their chidren.

As the FOF mother of a 30-year-old son, I couldn’t live with myself if I knew my death would affect him so profoundly.  Sure, we’d want our children to miss us, at least for a brief time. Then we’d want them to remember us lovingly and to go on happily with their lives.

My dad died when I was 41 and it made me sad. I still think about him often. I am sorry for McQueen that he couldn’t have had similar feelings when his mom died. It is a great loss when one so young and so talented leaves us.

P.S. On another note, a mother in Georgia is mourning the death of her 21-year-old son, who had a fatal luge accident at the Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada. My heart breaks for her–and for her son.

0 Responses to “Just plain sad”

  1. doubpoell says:

    Can you believe this story from Denver?

    I just saw this story and had to share it with all of you.

    This poor woman, just can’t believe that this actually happens in this day and age, what a shame.

    I just thought it was important to share.

    (CNN) — Three police cars pulled into Christina FourHorn’s front yard one afternoon while working from home just before she was supposed to pick up her daughter at school. The officers had a warrant for her arrest.

    “What do you mean robbery?” FourHorn remembers asking the officers. Her only brushes with the law had been a few speeding tickets.

    She was locked up in a Colorado jail. They took her clothes and other belongings and handed her an oversize black-and-white striped uniform. She protested for five days, telling jailers the arrest was a mistake. Finally, her husband borrowed enough money to bail her out.

    “They wouldn’t tell me the details,” she said.

    Later, it became clear that FourHorn was right, that Denver police had arrested the wrong woman. Police were searching for Christin Fourhorn, who lived in Oklahoma.

    Their names were similar, and Christina FourHorn, a mother with no criminal record living in Sterling, Colorado, had been caught in the mix-up.

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    • Geri says:

      This is too upsetting. I wonder why she didn’t call a lawyer.

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  2. Duchesse says:

    I have seen this before (with not-famous people). Their loss is unbearable and the bereaved often imagines he can “join” the person who died. Or believes there is nothing here anymore for him without the person.

    If I had such an attached relationship with a child and knew I was dying, I would request that the child commemorate me by using his gifts. I have no idea if Joyce McQueen did this. Or if she did, he may not have taken that wish to heart. Very sad.

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  3. LPC says:

    Such a sad story.

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