Two events occurred within the last 24 hours that made me take notice. Judy Martin was found dead in her home; Aaron Rodgers received an award. Now you may think these two events have nothing to do with diabetes and on the surface they surely do not; but the aftermath very well might.
Ms. Martin was a beloved news anchor here for our local News 12 television station and when her death was reported with the cause yet to be determined, well the social media pages were flooded with people asking why, as well as sending condolences. People wanted details and people were trying to find out exactly the cause of death ….sound familiar? As I was reading the posts of her death, I just kept thinking how many times I have read of someone dying in our diabetes community and the posts that follow in social media.
Now I fully understand that parents asking about a death of a child surely has a direct reason to their own lives. Almost as if to make sure they are doing everything possible making sure their child might be faced with a same fate. Clearly the reasons for asking are different, but the ask is happening just the same. People want to know why. They want to know details. They are saddened. Sound familiar?
Aaron Rodgers received the Bart Starr Award this week. Now surely that has nothing to do with diabetes either but my thoughts notwithstanding went again to the diabetes community for this reason: we are constantly asking, and/or stating that diabetes needs to be in the news more often. Why was not this fund-raising event covered and/or why was not that conference covered? Here you have a truly great quarterback receiving an incredible award, with an event attended by a god deal of football players, and it was barely a ‘blip’ in the news. Sound familiar?
My point in these far-reaching stretches to make a point is simply this; the diabetes community is not so unique in the things we seek and the things that happened are not so unique to only us. Other things happen to other people and other organizations that are truly parallel to what we see every day. It was just a thought I had.
Yes we do want more coverage in the media about diabetes and so do others who have an agenda, although different, as we do. Yes when someone passes away, people DO want to know details, as we do..
Sometimes we should realize that it’s a big world out there with so much happening and our wants/wishes/desires, as big as they may seem to us, may not be as unique as we think they are.
I am a diabetes dad.
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