Wednesday, September 28, 2011

What Will You Be Remembered For?


I had never even heard of Heidi the Opossum until her death this week. But, evidently many knew who she was and was intrigued by her uniqueness.

Heidi, a cross-eyed opossum who became an Internet sensation in Germany, winning three times more Facebook admirers than Chancellor Angela Merkel, is dead, her zoo said Wednesday.
"The cross-eyed opossum Heidi has closed her eyes for ever," said the zoo in Leipzig, eastern Germany.
The animal, aged three and a half, had been treated for health problems for weeks and zoo officials decided to put her down "to spare her further pain and suffering."
Heidi's distinctive eye problem was thought to be due to a poor diet before she was abandoned in the United States, or because she was overweight, leading to fat deposits behind her eyes.
The unusual-looking opossum is the latest in a long line of animal stars to capture German hearts.
A polar bear called Knut in Berlin became a global media star in 2007, even appearing on the front page of Vanity Fair magazine, before plunging the country into shock with his sudden death earlier this year.
Then, during the last football World Cup in South Africa, an octopus named Paul shot to global stardom by correctly "predicting" the results of eight out of eight matches.
(From FoxNews.com)

Heidi's crossed-eyes made her legendary. Social media today influences the quirky ways we follow animals who are personified on Facebook or Twitter. Remember the cobra that escaped from the Bronx zoo earlier this year? This snake still has more than 220,000 followers on Twitter!

Have you thought about it lately? For what do you want to be remembered? If you died tomorrow, what would your best of friends, co-workers, or even enemies say about you if they had the opportunity to give an epitaph?

Does it really matter to you? It does to me.