When You're Heart Has Expired

DISCLAIMER: The following article talks about death and goes deeply into its meaning. It also spoils a major plot element in the movie/musical RENT. Read at your own risk.

"I'll Cover You (Reprise)" is hands down the saddest song in the movie/musical RENT. Every time I listen to this song, I always sing along with Jesse L. Martin as he cries out this foreshadowed eulogy.

In his voice, you can hear the pain his character Tim Collins is going through after his boyfriend, Angle, dies of A.I.D.s. It really makes you contemplate what the worth of a life is.

Angel was an amazing character: a homosexual cross-dresser with A.I.D.s who wasn't afraid to live life to the fullest and share his love with everyone he met. He was a fun loving, over the top Drag Queen with a heart of gold. He didn't deserve to have a sexually transmitted disease. He didn't deserve to die so young. And part of me wants to argue that he didn't deserve to die at all. But this thought gets me going down a dark path in which I ask myself; if people don't deserve to die, why do they?

Would death exist for all living things if all living things did not in some way deserve to die? According to Webster's Dictionary, to deserve is a noun that means "to be worthy, fit or suitable for some reward or requital." So perhaps death is either a reward or a punishment for something.

If death is a reward, is it the universe's way of saying "You have served your purpose and the Universe has no other use for you. Thank you very much and enjoy your death!" If that's the case, then why does it tend to make people feel negative thoughts instead of congratulatory ones? And why do some people live good lives and others live bad ones and they are both rewarded?

Then, maybe it's a punishment. Everyone's done something bad in their lives. And every action has a positive or negative reaction. But, death seems like an extreme punishment for those who have done minor wrongs and have strived their entire lives to do as much good as they can. Again, it isn't fair that someone who has lived a good life is punished as harshly as someone who lives a bad one.

So, death is not a reward. And it isn't a punishment, either. Then the only logical answer is that death is something else all together. perhaps death is just a natural event. An occurrence that must be accepted as inevitable no mater how a person dies or at what age. And perhaps death is non-discriminatory about who it takes and under what circumstances.


But, if all that is true, and death is neither a reward nor a punishment, simply a natural occurrence which all living things must take part it, then why do I still feel so sad about Angel?