I love Don Knotts. Thanks Don Knotts.

Those words were scrolled on the wall of a restaurant I grabbed a quick bite from this afternoon.

Interesting, no? Don commenting on himself as the rest of the wall has ramblings from Cynthia Nixon praising the food to Carmen Electra offering to spank the owner. Peculiar.

I was thumbing through this week's double issue of EW last night in between loads of laundry & kitchen cleaning and happened upon Peter Berg's The Kingdom. Giddy as a kid, that I am, to see what he and his neighbor Michael Mann have cooked up for with that insane cast of Piven, Bateman, Cooper, Fox, & Garner. Beyond the tales of hell during the production were the tragedies surrounding the film. There were three deaths.

One died on the way to work. Another died after having stomach cramps and upon going to the hospital, prostate cancer was diagnosed and he was gone within a week. The third passed away from an onset collision. The industry is family now, so I seeked out each on IMDb to see who they were and what they did. The third death struck me. His name was Nick Papac, 26 years old and had a decent list of creds before his demise. I went down to his message board and my blood ran cold for his mother was posting messages to her son. I couldn't help but comment and extend my condolences.

Odd that she was telling Nick of her latest adventures. I stared at her profound message for some time then happiness began to fill my heart. As painful as it may seem, her son died doing what he truly loved. There was no hesitation. No hindsight. No judgment on her part. Simply acceptance.

How many of us can say that about our lives? That we're doing truly what we want, day in and day out? I know my parents can't. Probably about 80% of my friends can't either to certain degrees. Hell, on some days I find myself saying wtf?

Going back to my headline of "I love Don Knotts. Thanks Don Knotts" --

Maybe Don had it right when he was here with us. Maybe we need to thank ourselves a bit more for where we are in life.