Trio of deaths gives us pause

There's an old newspaper superstition that deaths of famous people come in threes. We sometimes bend our perceptions to see things that way, but last week we didn't have to.

Meanwhile, the trio of deaths also seems to demand some reflection on the fleeting nature of celebrity in our culture and on the price people sometimes pay for fame.

Michael Jackson offers a most dramatic example. There is no denying his great talent, as a singer, dancer and songwriter, his ability to touch something in the hearts and spirits of millions of people around the world.

And there is no denying that his success allowed him to live life in ways that were eccentric, to put it mildly.

Did the lack of a normal childhood induce a desire to remain childlike forever? Did great success early on breed carelessness about money and much else? How much suffering was endured behind the façade?

And who would want to trade lives with Farrah Fawcett? Famous early on for her incredible hair and good looks, her abilities as an actress were questioned.

Should she have cared? Pop culture can be whimsical. She gained great respect for the way she approached and endured the cancer that ended her life, but was belated respect a sufficient trade-off for dying too young?

And how could Ed McMahon, with a secure high-paying, highly visible job for so many years and all those endorsement deals, have found himself facing possible home foreclosure toward the end of his life? Is there no security in life?

In fact, life, wherever we stand on various ladders measuring wealth, success, respect, or happiness is full of trade-offs and does not come with guarantees.

Maintaining your integrity might or might not help your career. Families offer love and shelter but many families are sadly dysfunctional. A careless move, submitting to temptation (see Mark Sanford) can plunge a life replete with promise into depths of failure and despair.

But those are the things that go with life. To an extent, a person has control of some aspects. But others just happen, completely out of the control of those who are affected. As the insurance company ad campaign says, life comes at you fast.

What's left is integrity, being true to yourself. It may be the only anchor when the storms come.