In case you missed it, Prince died a couple of weeks ago. I walked into the front office and someone mentioned his death to which someone else replied, “Wait a minute.  Is that like THE Prince or is that like Prince Somebody?”

Less than five minutes after the man’s death was announced, the theories began to surface. His plane had made an emergency landing coming back from a concert just a few days before.  What if whatever precipitated the landing actually caused his death?  He had allegedly been unresponsive due to an overdose on the pain killer Percocet.  What if he was addicted?  It might have happened again.  The hypothecating continued, becoming more and more absurd with each one.  He died from taking the flu vaccine; no, wait . . . he died from the flu.  Wait, Aretha Franklin said it was the Zika virus.  But somebody else said he was still alive and probably in Cuba.  And then my personal favorite, he was murdered in an Illuminati blood sacrifice ritual.  In an elevator.  Because we all know that’s where any self-respecting member of the Illuminati conducts their blood sacrifices.

Really, people?

The saddest part about all of this is there are those in this world who will not only believe all this mess, but continue to spread it as truth. Why?  Evidently because we can’t stand not knowing why something terrible has happened . . . so if we don’t know the actual reason we’ll just make one up.  And then tell EVERYBODY.

Rating right up there with that fiction as truth thing is the sad fact that the common man—or woman—is not immune from the web of lies that seem to be woven around unknown circumstances. Let a young person die that has not been suffering from a terminal illness and suddenly Facebook is awash in reasons why.  And, of course, they’re never nice ones.  It can’t be that they might have had a heart attack or some undetected genetic abnormality.  Nope.  That’s too ordinary.  They had to have been a drug addict or it was a suicide or someone murdered them or . . .

I cannot begin to imagine how the families left behind must feel. Not only do they have to deal with the sudden loss of someone they love, they are forced to listen as the world debates why.  That “why” is definitely important to the family; they need to understand what happened.  But the rest of us?  Not so much.

In a way, celebrities like Prince are very fortunate. There has been an autopsy.  There is a continuing investigation.  And when the results are finally known they will be plastered all over every social media outlet and checkout line tabloid.  Then everyone can quit theorizing and go back to actual business.  But for ordinary folks, even if there is an autopsy, even if there is an investigation, there rarely ever is the over-the-top public announcement as to the cause.  So from here to eternity, the family must bear the shame of events that never happened.

Please, for the sake of those left behind, watch your words when Death comes suddenly and unexpectedly. If you wouldn’t say it to the face of their closest kin, don’t put it on Facebook or spread it as gospel.  It serves no useful purpose . . . except maybe to make you feel important . . . and it certainly doesn’t help matters.  Before you post, put yourself in their place, and then decide if you really want to make someone’s hopeless situation even worse.

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