I got the bulletin telling me of the untimely stabbing of poor Anna Svidersky. I was also informed that if I ever forward anything I have to forward this, because otherwise I'm heartless and shallow and "she deserves to be remembered".

Has anyone looked at the rate of death lately? Anyone? As far as I know, its something like five people per second. Maybe that's just the US alone. Imagine what it is worldwide.

Every single person who dies was special, a vast majority of them leave behind feelings of shock, sadness, mourning and loss in others. Every one of them was, in their own way, tragic. Every one deserves to be remembered.

Yet where are their forwards?

How is a young girl getting stabbed by a schizophrenic more tragic and untimely than a soldier copping a bullet, a firefighter dying on the job, an office worker crushed in a collapsed tower, a father drowning in flood, a mother losing their battle with cancer? What gives this victim the right to our time over them?

It's a fabulous news story, that's what. I know everyone who forwarded this had the best of intentions but what you're actually doing is succumbing to mass media and its predictable formulae. A pretty high school photo and a shifty looking, grainy prison shot. A nice, popular, attractive girl and a dirty madman. Sane and caring versus "paranoid schizophrenic" child molester. Beloved productive immigrant murdered by incurably criminal citizen. I know this is real life but it couldn't have made a better story if Hollywood collaborated on it.

I am deeply saddened by her murder, but there's no way I can say I understand what her parents and friends are going through and I won't pretend that by forwarding this I'm somehow making it better. Everyone's grief, EVERYONE'S, is the saddest, deepest, most painful experience in the world, and yet no-one can ever know what another's feels like. That's why grief is so lonely.

If there was one thing I could change about the world at this point in time, I think it would be to make people think, REALLY think, about what they pass on. Maybe, if everyone weren't so busy forwarding tragic stories they'd be writing letters to the government demanding more focus on understanding and controlling mental illness. Maybe, if everyone weren't so accepting of the media's spoon-fed ideas of right and wrong there'd be less injustice in the world. Maybe, if people actually contemplated what "She didn't deserve to die" REALLY MEANT, they'd understand what they were implying is that somehow, others do.

NO-ONE deserves to die.

I will not be bullied into forwarding things, no matter how honest, no matter how tragic, no matter how emotionally blackmailing. I will forward what strikes my fancy, and what might make a difference, and what might make others laugh. I will try my hardest not to contribute to the oversensationalisation and stereotypes that tell people what and how they should think.

Yes, R.I.P. Anna. But the rememberance and mourning belongs to her family and friends, because you can't remember someone you didn't know. And trying to, somehow cheapens the whole human experience for me. And that's what's really tragic.