Who cares about an actor who dies?  This is a question  people, including myself, often ask themselves.  I decided to answer this question as late last night before bed I learned that Cory Monteith was found dead in a hotel room, and woke up this morning profoundly sad.

Cory Monteith was an actor on the TV show Glee, which was a favorite of mine – a weekly foray into silliness, poignancy and music, music, music.  It is a great little escape, usually with a point and something to ponder for a day.  When his stint on the show was over, with he and love interest “Rachel” (Lea Michele) going their separate ways, Glee fans were thrilled  as we watched them fall in love for real.   Like all good fairy tales, it touched the romantic in us.  It was a real life happy ending to a sad ending in the TV show, and we hoped it would not end badly in their eventual breakup.  To have it end this way was unexpected and tragic.

So why do we feel this way?  I think it is because actors reflect our humanity, their craft mirrors our emotions: our fears, our loves, our hatred, our elation, our sorrow.  A good actor touches us deeply.  We laugh at a bad actor because even that reflects our human folly: to try something, not be good at it and do it anyway, for the pure reason that we are human and we can.

It is no more shallow to grieve the loss of an actor than it is to have a piece of art defaced in a museum.  Something that belongs to all of us is lost.  I think this may be the reason we, as a society, overreact at the loss of any celebrity.  Why do I remember where I was the day Princess Diana was killed?  Why was my Dad, who was not a big JFK fan, unable to bring himself to play ping pong with me and instead he cried that day?  Jimi Hendrix.  Heath Ledger.  They, in their notoriety, define us in a very public way.

In this case, I grieve because Cory Monteith and his cute and talented cohort, Lea Michele, defined sweet young love for me.  Here’s a video that shows the two young actors falling in love for real.  It touched me and soothed my sad soul this morning.