Wakanda Forever

It SUUUUCKs to write this one. Seriously. Chadwick Boseman was forty-three. He died of cancer that the general public never even knew he had.  I'm forty three. Listen, I know someone out there is going to whine about me "making this all about myself" but they can tongue-jack the fartbox. Making comparisons about stuff like this is how human beings relate to each other.

Soo....

This past December I "celebrated" defeating my very own father (Rest in Peace, Dad). Defeated how? I made it to age forty-three. He passed at forty-two. Yup. I now "own" my father. The thing is, he died in a boating accident. I did a post about Anton Yelchin, who passed at twenty-seven, but he died in a freak thing that I probably couldn't duplicate if I wanted to. (For the record, I don't want to.) And listen, we all pass at some point. It happens. Being alive is a fatal condition. But it shouldn't happen at forty-three, especially to a man like this.

Boseman was informed that he had cancer in 2016. He could have packed it in and decided he needed to stop working for the time being to focus on his health. There is not a human being alive that would have faulted him for it. Do you want to know what he did instead?

Message from the King
Captain America: Civil War
Gods of Egypt
Marshall
Black Panther
Avengers: Infinity War
Avengers: Endgame
21 Bridges
Da 5 Bloods.

I've never had cancer, so I can't say exactly how it feels, but I can tell you from what I've heard from others that it's EXTREMELY painful. Boseman got up every day and went to work anyway. He endured the endless takes. He delivered his lines in a manner befitting his character, whoever they had happened to be. He put in the hours. He had a successful career in a field that is damn near impossible to get into WHILE HE WAS DYING OF CANCER.

He. Was. A. Man.

But he wasn't just a man. He was a man among men. Chadwick Boseman did not just PLAY a superhero. He WAS a superhero. He not only went to work on-set, he went to hospitals to visit sick kids. Who does that? Who gets up in the morning in extreme pain knowing that his days are probably numbered and decides to go make someone else's day? Who has the caring nature and the intestinal fortitude to WANT to do that? Who has the courage and determination to do something like that even if they do want to?

Chadwick Boseman did. And we lost him. And he was less than three weeks older than I am. And I'm sorry, but yes that does make it worse. Boseman was a man that deserved to see a century at least. I never met him, but to do what he did he had to have been one of the strongest and kindest people ever to walk the face of the planet.

I don't remember which awards show it was, but at one point I saw Robert Downey Jr. throw a Wakanda Forever salute at Boseman and smile. Boseman threw it back, but his face never moved. At the time, I assumed it was some kind of joke RDJ was playing and Boseman was just kind of trying to keep the peace in public. Men are, after all, men and we do like to joke. Now though, I'm not so sure.

I look back on that in the light of new information and wonder if Boseman was just in pain and was tired of acting. Or maybe it just hurt too much that night. I wouldn't blame him either way and anyone with cancer is going to have days where they just can't even. Even if that's what it was though he showed up. He gave his fans and his employers what they wanted. I stand amazed.

I suppose I should talk about Boseman's career. About Captain America: Civil War or Black Panther, which I reviewed on this blog. I could wax eloquent about his acting in the Avengers movies. I haven't seen his other work, so I can't really comment on that. I find myself not wanting to though. Maybe I'm just not as much of a man as Boseman was and I'm not forcing myself to focus on what's important.

Then again, maybe I _am_ focusing on what's important. A man is more than his job. A life is not measured in dollars earned, but in what a person does to make the world a better place. Entertainment helps (and I do this blog in the hope that I've improved someone's day at least a little bit by entertaining them with my musings for a whole five seconds) but it's more than that.

My fathers funeral was the largest one I've ever been to. I talked face to face with people I hadn't heard from in years. What did they talk about? My dad and how he helped out with the Cub Scouts. The way my dad coached basketball teams. His ribald sense of humor. They remembered him not by what he did for a living but by how he touched their lives.  The only time anyone asked about anything my father owned was when someone inquired as to whether he still had the basketball he had all of the girls who were on the only championship winning team he ever coached. I assured the girl who asked that yes, he did. She smiled and that was that.

And I guess that's what bothers me in this case. Don't get me wrong. Boseman deserves to be remembered for his work. But, thirty years from now who is going to remember him going to hospitals or how hard he worked after he found out he was sick?

Do you know who it will be?

The people whose lives he affected. They'll be the ones telling the stories. They'll be better qualified to do it than I am too because they'll have the details that I don't because I wasn't there. Then again, maybe I'm happy I wasn't there. Who wants to be sick enough to get a visit from a Marvel superstar? Not me.

You know who was sick enough to get a visit from a Marvel Superstar?

Chadwick Boseman.

And he went anyway.

Rest In Peace, Chadwick Boseman