On "Friends" and Death

 

Well, it's been a long time since I've written here, but these thoughts needed a place to land:

Death is in front of us every day, sometimes close at hand and other times at a distance. The death of Friends actor Matthew Perry seems both close and distant.

I was not much of a Friends watcher, meaning I did not set my weekly schedule around episodes, or record them for later entertainment, or even really pay much attention to the overall evolution of its storylines and characters. Usually my eyes glazed over when my buddies quoted lines or discussed recent episodes.

Sometimes now, though, I will catch a clip or watch an episode with appreciation for the humorous and real depiction of core life longings. In the end the fun gives way to something real.

And now, through the screen but off to the side where actual life is lived, we are confronted with one of life’s unavoidable realities, the death of someone we “know.”

My generation, GenX, was famously described in Robert D. Putnam’s book Bowling Alone (2000) as a lonely and largely isolated group of young adults awash in the wake created by the Boomer generation. Maybe this loneliness is part of what attracted us to Friends, a depiction of, well, friendship, chosen family, and belonging. The sitcom gave us a glimmer of hope dispensed in small doses of unreality t.v.

The impact of Friends and Perry’s death was recently described in the New York Times this way: “With his passing, the most unpresumptuous of good-time comedies again managed to do a small and profound thing. Through it, a succession of generations got to experience the start of something. Through him, they got a glimpse of the end.”

Patrick, a friend of mine, said of Perry’s death, “It feels a bit like an old friend that I hadn’t seen in many years has passed away. And, of course, it’s also a reminder of how fast the years start flying off the calendar the older you get.”

GenXers have always felt vulnerable, invisible, on the edge of death and extinction. Perhaps that’s why the death of a t.v. star resonates with many of us. Death IS nearby. But today those feelings of the lonely generation have expanded to encompass those wake-setting Boomers, and trailing Millennials and GenZ. A recent report by United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy identified the prevalence of loneliness, isolation, and lack of connection in our country, naming it a public health crisis.

The death of a significant person in our lives, whether close or distant, can amplify those feelings of loneliness and isolation. The Surgeon General determined that the Covid 19 pandemic compounded our losses and exacerbated our loneliness. Few of us would disagree. 

Loss is hard; it is harder alone.

I’m pretty sure the death of Matthew Perry will bring a spike in Friends viewership; after all, it still remains one of the most readily available and watched syndications of all time. But Perry’s death gives us more than just an opportunity to re-enter made-for-t.v. friendships. It gives us an opportunity to pause and recognize the status of our own friendships. Perry’s death invites us to our own questions of death, but more importantly it invites us to questions of life. 

How will we live? Who will we love? Where is hope? What is good? Are we together?  

When a good friend is gone, we can lament our loneliness or gather our friends. In the days ahead, it’s likely both. After all, that's what Friends is for, isn't it?!