Choices in Life and Death

My father used to pontificate that the word "can't" should not be a part of a person's vocabulary.  "Replace can't with can, will and do" was his mantra.  I heard and read him expound on this concept over and over again, particularly during the first few months of my military service.

My worldview has changed since those days.  I now know there are things that simply cannot be done.  There was a time whenI was at a conference on the East Coast, and I got a call asking me if I could step-in and take part in one on the West Coast, on the same day.  There was simply no way to be in both locations in such a short period of time.  Even with unlimited resources, it simply was not possible.  In fact, even if I could have convinced the U. S. Air Force to allow me to fly in one of the two SR-71s that were still operational prior to the year 2000, I still could not have taken part in both events.

So I accept the concept that there are some things that cannot be done.  What I struggled with is that William Shatner felt it necessary to tell the Twitterverse that he could not attend the funeral of Leonard Nimoy.  The two were the closest of friends.  How a person chooses to grieve is totally their prerogative.  I hate funerals.  I do everything I can to avoid attending them.  If he shares that feeling, that's fine by me.

I also get that Mr. Shatner was involved with a charity event in Florida.  A big event.  The annual Red Cross Ball, in Palm Beach, is the "event of the social season" in that area.  It raised hundreds of thousands for a very worthwhile charity.  It didn't start until 6 p.m. on Saturday night and was scheduled to run until midnight.  The funeral went off at 9 a.m. the following morning, a window of only nine hours to transit the entire width of the United States.

Like others, I posited that Mr. Shatner could have chartered a private jet and arrived back in Southern California with time to spare.  There are charter services in Miami that could have prepositioned a jet at Palm Beach International.  Mr. Shatner could have been airborne by 12:30 a.m. on Saturday evening after the charity event ended.  Even with bad weather conditions, the flight time from Florida to LAX is under five hours.  Which tells us that sometime during that nine hour window between the end of the charity event and the funeral, Mr. Shatner could have gotten himself to Los Angeles.

I'll even concede that it was not about money, or Mr. Shatner's willingness (or lack thereof) to spend whatever it took to get to LA for the service.  That would have been his personal choice, and none of anyone's business.  Until he tweeted this out:
          

"Dear @toddschnitt as previously stated must have missed your email offering to provide this jet. Please resend CC# so I can make a donation."

 

Shatner had noted in an earlier tweet that the cost of such a flight would be around $30,000.  How would he know this if he hadn't looked into it.  Now if he did that research and decided he wasn't willing to spend that much money to be at the funeral, I would NOT question that decision.  But I would point out that he should not be claiming he "can't" attend.  Clearly he could have attended.  He made a choice not to.  And in raising the issue of the cost of a charter flight, he himself made it about the money.

 

This justifies the question, why did William Shatner not charter a jet to get to his friend's funeral?  If the issue was solely the money, I'd have gladly donated to a fundraising campaign to pay for that flight.  In fact, to placate those who advance the thought that the late Leonard Nimoy would have preferred the money go to a charity instead, I'd have donated an equal amount to a charity.  If the issue was that Mr. Shatner felt he wasn't up to the rigors of such a trip, I would accept that.  He is in his 80s.  If he felt it was beyond his physical capabilities, fair enough.

 

Just don't claim you couldn't, when you could have.  That's an unfair, less than truthful explanation of why you're making a choice.