The Death of a King

He lived.
People are already typing about what he did while he knew he was dying. HE LIVED. He lived his dreams. HE. LIVED.
And people talk like fighting cancer is to know you'll die. It's not. He lived. Not for his fans. But for himself. He lived doing what he loved.
HE LIVED.
And I don't know if y'all realize we are all, always, in fact dying. I don't know if we think ourselves so immune to death that we don't see the decay we have to wash off our skin (daily, all of your skin. BATHE) as participating in death. I don't know how we understand life such that we don't get that it's a steady march towards death.
But we're all dying. And we know it.
We don't need a disease to remind us or extrajudicial killings to keep it at the forefront of our imaginations. Life is not permanent. It fades. Everything and everyone dies.

And if what y'all get is "he worked to bring us joy even though he was dying" then you miss the lesson of Chadwick Boseman's life: He. Lived.
For 4 years, he lived with cancer.
For 4 years, he lived on movie sets.
For 4 years, he lived - privately - in the public eye.
(We watched him lose weight and clicked tongues talking about put that weight back on... because we didn't know.)
For 4 years, he lived his dream.
For 4 years, he lived his vocation.
For 4 years, he lived.

HE LIVED.
Not for us. Not because of us. (seriously, please stop centering yourselves in other people's lives. It's ... pathological. The man had a whole family who loved him and suggesting that his final scenes were for the love of fans and not because he loved acting and loved taking care of his family is immature.)
HE LIVED FOR HIMSELF.
HE. LIVED.
His *life* mattered. That he LIVED mattered. He LIVED while facing death. HE. LIVED.
He did what he was born to do, what he loved to do, what he lived to do. HE LIVED.

My friend: you're dying, too. And your death is no less certain than T'Challa's... I mean, Chadwick's. You. are. dying. Every minute, every second, your body comes closer to its end.
Wake up and live.
Live. Right now. Live.
Fulfill your purpose. Live your life - for YOU. Do what you love until you can't do anything anymore. LIVE.

That's the point.
LIVE.