Katherine O’Hara died on Friday at the age of 71. I heard the news while I was at Bob’s mom’s funeral. That timing mattered. It landed differently. Seventy-one isn’t old. It’s about nine years older than I am now, which makes the math unavoidable. Sobering, isn’t it? We like to imagine that celebrity buys extra time. Better doctors. Better odds. Better luck. But it turns out the truth is far simpler and far more human. When it’s your time, it’s your time. Instead of cataloging a career or replaying a highlight reel, I keep thinking about Moira Rose, the character O’Hara played on Schitt’s Creek. I didn’t even watch the show all that closely, but this one line of hers has been echoing in my head all week. Maybe because of where I was when I heard the news. Maybe because it cuts straight through our nonsense. "Take a thousand naked pictures of yourself now. You may currently think \"Oh, I'm too spooky.\" Or, \"Nobody wants to see these tiny boobies.\" But believe me, one day you will look at those photos with much kinder eyes and say, \"Dear God, I was a beautiful thing.\"" That line isn’t really about bodies. It’s about time. About how we waste so much of it being cruel to ourselves. About how we postpone appreciation until it’s safely in the past, when nothing is at risk anymore. It’s a reminder that the version of you you’re second-guessing right now is the one future-you will ache to have back. Standing in a room full of grief, that message made me think of all of us. Live now. See yourself now. Don’t wait for hindsight to grant you permission to be kind. Because if there’s one thing this past week made clear, it’s that none of us are guaranteed the luxury of later. And believing you are a beautiful thing shouldn’t be a posthumous realization.
