Saturday, November 28, 2009

Natural Cause?

I found some sad news today. One of the members of Boyzone, Stephen Gately, died recently of "natural causes" (this apparently happened back in October, but I'm only hearing it for the first time today. I remember them best from Andrew Lloyd Webber's 50th birthday performance, when my mom and I were both in love with them - especially Gately and Ronan Keating.

In any case, I never understood how someone could die from "natural causes". I mean, apart from my dislike for the term "natural" or "normal", you die of SOMETHING. Respiratory failure, cardiac arrest, SOMETHING. Wikipedia tells me that Gately died of pulmonary oedema caused by congenital heart defect. Why can't people just say that, rather than using the rather cop-out, and overly generalized term of "natural causes"? Saying someone died from "natural causes" merely intrigues us and makes us dig for more info about how they really died.

Anyway, some quick thoughts before bed.

No comments: