Opinion: Deaths get you thinking about life

Former New Zealand Silver Fern netballer Tania Dalton passed away yesterday. Photo/File

It's strange how the death of someone you never met and had not seen or heard of in years can bring you to tears. Not to mention giving you a sharp reminder of life's priorities.

Former Silver Fern Tania Dalton's was one such death for me.

Perhaps it was the incongruity of it. The image of a fit, healthy keen sportswoman enjoying a social game of touch one minute - it's a scene being repeated at parks around the country every summer evening. Then suddenly she is on the ground fighting for her life.

It just doesn't make sense.

Perhaps it was the three young children in the blink of an eye left without their mum. A husband left without a wife and countless other family members and friends also grieving.

As a keen netballer growing up and a sports fan in general I remember watching Dalton play for the Silver Ferns.

She was tall and lanky and a fierce competitor, but also came across bubbly and fun and like she loved what she was doing.

Netball may not have enjoyed the same profile as rugby or cricket, but Dalton was a household name, someone little girls idolised.

And by all accounts she was just as good a person as she was a netballer.

It's easy to live life as if we have forever.

But the premature deaths over the last week of people such as 45-year-old Dalton, 56-year-old Rotorua tourism leader Doug Tamaki and 42-year-old Rotorua man Kieran McDonogh (killed snowboarding on his dream trip to Whistler) serve to remind us, if we need it, that we don't have forever.

Tania Dalton "sucked the juice out of every day".

Doug Tamaki "lived life to the full". Kieran McDonogh loved missions and adventures and "went out doing something he loved".

If people wouldn't say the same about us after we die, now is the time to do something about it.