I was 15 when Kurt Cobain died and it hit me at a visceral level. I can still vividly remember the moment I found out and how I felt. He was the main player in the soundtrack of my teen years and he is still one of my favourites today. There was this void, and complete and utter sadness that I carried around for a long time after.
If I am being honest, most of my social interactions come from online sources. I am an introvert but I have developed some close online relationships over the years. Yesterday in one of these places I read the argument asking why people get so upset when celebrities die. While there was a multitude of people who agreed with them there were even more that gave a deep and meaningful explanation about why it affects them. It was very touching to read each of these people’s personal stories.
A few hours ago I read on Facebook that Celine Dion’s husband René Angélil died today of cancer (on top of all the other losses today and this week) and I thought, “what the hell is going on?” First David Bowie whose music has always been there in my life. If we would have had a son I wanted to name him Bowie. I don’t know if Tom would have been on board with tha thoug, it’s a pretty big name to live up to. His role as Jareth in the Labyrinth was one of my first huge crushes and is still one of my favourite movies. Today was Alan Rickman, Severus Snape and it hurt my heart. Telling Roo my 11-year-old was hard. Every single night she is either reading them or listening to Harry Potter Audio Books. She collects, watches, obsesses over Harry Potter and I knew this would be like her Kurt Cobain. She cried when Snape died in the book and again today when she heard the news. She has spent different parts of her day quietly to herself but every where she went she has carried her little Snape Funko figure and placed it gently beside her.
I was trying to explain my reasons about why some celebrity deaths affect me but the words failed me. Some people touch you and some don’t seems so vague and doesn’t get to the real depth of why on a personal level. Then I came across this twitter post by Juliette @ElusiveJ I thought, “Bingo, that’s exactly how I feel.”
Thinking about how we mourn artists we’ve never met. We don’t cry because we knew them, we cry because they helped us know ourselves.
— Juliette (@ElusiveJ) January 11, 2016
