Please indulge me in two more thoughts about the Crocodile Hunter

I mentioned last night that one of the saddest moments of the Steve Irwin memorial service was when his fellow croc-catching mate loaded up his ute and drove it out of the arena. Here's a photo of the ute as it appeared during the service:

I'm so moved by this. What is left of a man? A truck, some canvas, a net or two, a surfboard. Why do these meaningless things endure while the most meaningful thing of all must leave? Certainly his legacy is his widow and his children, but there's an inherent cruelty in the permanence of possessions and the transience of being.

It's a notion that has haunted me for many years, since it was first articulated by the pile of victims' shoes in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Inscribed on the wall above the 4,000-odd pairs: "We are the shoes, We are the last witnesses / We are shoes from grandchildren and grandfathers. / From Prague, Paris and Amsterdam / And because we are only made of fabric and leather / And not of blood and flesh, / Each one of us avoided the Hellfire". Of course I'm not comparing Steve Irwin's death to the Holocaust. But the concept of what remains behind once we are gone is the same. It's sad, and unfair. And it's unavoidable.

One last point: The photo also reminds me of how real Steve must have been. When a person attains a certain level of success and celebrity, often they leave the tasks for which they became famous for others to carry out. For example, Martha Stewart has an army of minions to do her cooking, cleaning, gardening, crafting, etc. Looks to me like Steve Irwin did his own work, in his own old ute, right up to the end. He had a team behind him, yes, but his car was just as he left it, ready for his next foray into far north Queensland. He didn't outsource his vision; he did it himself.

OK, enough. Tomorrow, I swear I am going to write about The Biggest Loser. The new season debuts tonight!