Why, lord? Why?

On McSweeney's Internet Tendencies the other night, I started reading a series of short essays about a writer who had recently died in a plane crash. Her name was Amanda Davis, and friends and lovers had written loving portraits of her. The testimonies were well written and poignant, and Amanda Davis sounded like she'd been a really cool person. She also had been a fiction writer, which I am trying to be, and she had gone at life with a tremendous amount of spirit and exuberance, which I never have. That's irrelevant, but it's notable for another reason.

I've noticed that almost any time someone dies before their time or is killed, they turn out to be someone who could have made so much more out of life than most people that the misfortune seems even more outsize and unthinkable. The dead person is often described as not only unusually warm and caring but super-smart, and not just super-smart but full of civic responsibility, yet also able to laugh more joyously than almost anyone, and able to transmit a kind of life-affirming zest to friends and family that is not just irreplaceable but well-nigh unique in one person's lifetime, to have in a friend. Amanda Davis seems to have been that kind of person -- the essays praising her infectious laugh, warm understanding, helpfulness, good listening skills, quirky but joyous fashion sense, passion for justice, capacity for affection and other truly wonderful traits just seemed to go on forever.

I read them feeling a mild, vicarious sadness about her early death, but also wondering why no one who dies young or gets killed is ever described as a downcast, joyless sadsack who seemed pretty much ready to go anyway. Look at Laci Peterson -- about the happiest young mother-to-be you've ever seen. There must be thousands of young women, living with a philandering future murderer like Scott Peterson, who wouldn't have quite such a joyous glint to their smile. But not Laci. She truly did seem to have the life-loving qualities her grief-stricken family attributed to her. And this is so often true it's uncanny. "She was such a good person," people say over and over about the deceased. "She loved life so much."

Just from the law of averages, isn't it strange that no one ever says, "She didn't seem to care if she lived or died. So in a weird way -- I'm sure she didn't actively want to die? But I'm not sure it would have mattered that much to her."