Letter #5: Bobby Fischer. February 2009.

It’s a new year, which leads to reflection on the past, and of those who died.

Bobby fischer, in January of 2008, died in Iceland of renal failure. After the US issued a warrant for his arrest for playing a game of chess in Yugoslavia—a violation of United Nations Sanctions (ordered by President H.W. Bush)—Iceland granted him citizenship. They felt that he “put Iceland on the map” after winning his World Championship Match there in 1972.

None of that really matters to me. In my head he’s the boy from the movie I watched as a kid. I sat—glued to the television— with my mother, when my dad was away, and it made me anxious. Prodigies scare me. They’re treated like space aliens or superhumans in the media, and it saddens me. Mostly, a part of me is jealous.

But from most accounts he died relatively alone, and if he wasn’t in pain, he wasn’t comfortable either. While his prodigal frame didn’t guarantee such a morose ending, in my mind the two are linked.

What do you think? Did you know anyone who died in 2008? Would you care to share a story?