Deaths

Rebecca Burger was a French Instagram model. She was very focused on self-care, fitness, health and appearance. Most of the pictures on her feed were of herself, but the very last one, made by her relatives, is of a pressurized whipped cream dispenser. She was 33 when it exploded and killed her.

I think of Rebecca every now and again. Most recently, she came to mind when I heard British journalist Johann Hari say there’s a question that everybody’s prepared to answer in the US, but that you never hear in the UK.

The question is “What’s your story?”

I thought, there’s a kind of fairness, and a kind of ruthlessness, in not knowing how one’s story is going to end and what it’ll ultimately be about.