Love Is Lost:The sudden death of David Bowie

The last photo shoot David Bowie did.

 On the morning of January 11th, I woke to my boyfriend telling me that David Bowie died. He had to say it a few times for it to sink in. Not only was I half awake but I also just couldn't believe it. Was it a rumor? Is it verified? If this was true I knew my Facebook and email would have exploded with messages. Sure enough, that was the case. I logged on to numerous messages and comments verifying the terrible news. He had died the night before. By some stroke of luck I had went to bed kind of early; so I slept through the initial wave of the news. Scrolling through my news feed and seeing all the images, words, posts, it began to hit me like bricks pilling up on my lap.

I started to cry. My hero is dead.

Then what felt like out of nowhere, I began to get angry.

My status update:
"I've been dreading and thinking what this day would be like for a long time now. I never thought I'd feel so angry. Right now even though I'm in tears I feel pissed. I just lost my last and biggest hero. I'm angry. I'm pissed that I get to watch my heroes die, age and decease. I get to watch flames burn out, instead of being around to see them glow at their brightest. I get to watch fires die."

 Anger was an emotion I wasn't expecting or ready for. I was crying but I felt mad. It seemed I had quickly skipped over denial and went straight to anger when it came to the stages of grieving. I feel angry because Bowie is gone. I feel angry because I feel like if I had known he was sick I could have braced myself like I have for other rock stars. George Harrison for example, I knew he had cancer and wasn't doing well before he passed. Bowie never told the public he was battling cancer.

 Part of me understands the guy has the right to privacy and disclosing what he wants. The other irrational part of me feels angry he left us so suddenly. If I could compare it to anything, maybe it would be like Luke Skywalker losing Obi Wan Kenobi.

One of my biggest heroes is dead.

 I always knew this day would come (as it does for all of us) but I felt confident that it wouldn't be for a while yet. Just a couple of days after his 69th birthday and the release of a new album...he's gone. Two music videos were released before he died, "Blackstar" and "Lazarus." Previously they were just music videos, now fans and press are speculating they were his last messages before his death. I'm still taking all of this in. I've been quickly reminded that everyone mourns differently. Other Bowie fans are able to celebrate his life and see only the positive side of his ending. Honestly, I'm just not there yet. I feel really, really sad.

 Last night I popped in my "Best of Bowie" DVD to reminisce in his hefty body of music videos. Instead of it providing solace (like it usually does) it felt like repetitive punches in the gut...that was another emotional reaction I wasn't expecting. I made myself shower even though I wasn't feeling like it. I wasn't feeling like much of anything. I found myself spinning in circles in the shower as if the combination of the hot water and movement would somehow wake me up or snap me out of this. Neither happened, I just cried in the shower. 

 Bowie will never tour again. Bowie will never release more music. And most importantly, he's just not here anymore. The thought I keep coming around to is the fact that I get to watch stars die. I watch them age and die. Being born only in 1985, I've missed a lot of significant music. I'm mad that I was born too late. I'm mad that I have just barely enough time to discover them to say goodbye soon after. I feel like I'm saying goodbye a lot. Like I've been saying many goodbyes for a long time.

 At least random things have been offering me comfort, like this...

"Like celestial chemical factories, stars spend their lives fusing hydrogen and helium atoms to forge heavier elements. In death, extremely massive stars explode in a supernova, blasting their chemical creations into space, and seeding the universe for a new generation of stars to grow. Meanwhile, medium mass stars like our Sun puff up to become red giants before sloughing off their outer layers, like snakes shedding their skin, sending newly-formed elements and molecules floating slowly off into space."