A Grief Not My Own

I heard some bad news yesterday. Even though it was very old news, it was new news to me, and therefore just as shocking.

Several years ago, at a garage sale, I bought a old video compilation of various ice skating performances, including one or two by gold-medal-winning skating couple Sergei Grinkov and Katia (Ekaterina) Gordeeva. Have you heard of them?

We loved watching their perfomances over and over, she so tiny (at 5'1") and he so tall (5'11"). A lot of their moves involved him holding her, swinging her around, picking her up. They began skating together when she was 10 and he was 14. Eventually, they fell in love, and got married. It was the most beautiful, storybook romance, and we took that young Russian couple into our hearts. We felt like we knew them, we admired them, we sighed with joy over their romance and their talent, their young love.

Then, yesterday, I learned that Sergei died unexpectedly in 1997 of heart disease-- at 27 years of age-- leaving a 24-year-old widow and a tiny daughter.

The news hit me really hard. It's so sad, so tragic. So unfair. LovelyDaughter and I both cried as if it happened yesterday, because, for us it did.

The nice thing, however, about old news, is that you don't have to wait ten years to find out what happens next. This morning we went looking, and got to hear "the rest of the story."

Happily, Katia is now married again, in fact, has been for six years already, to another gold-medal-winning skater. Together they had another child. We got to watch a couple of newer videos of Katia and her new husband, Ilia, skating together, and of Katia and her two daughters skating together.

I'm glad there is still happiness. Katia was not left a bereaved, lonely widow forever. Her daughter is not completely fatherless. And yet... Still...

Hubby says he feels sorry for Sergei. He had to leave his happy life. He could no longer care for his daughter, and his wife was given to another.

It's good that sad endings can have happy new beginnings, but.... still...