So, with a little reverential homage to statistics, even a nondescript social game gains a mystique. Anybody who has had the least association with the Don has been sought after for comment. Australia Post is now providing books in its retail outlets in which ordinary people can write messages of condolence. Australia is in the middle of a wake. One of the features of a wake is extravagance.
People say the same thing over and over, looking for any small detail to extend the conversation.
Grief needs to be acknowledged and, culturally, our primary vehicle for drawing a response and responding to others is verbal. But there comes a point at which you realise that what is really going on is only partly about the person who has died. Grief tells you a lot about the person grieving. It often does the opposite in regard to the person who has actually died, burying them in platitudes and cliches. Grief is a battle between memory and forgetting.