2016 Year of the Dead

2016 Year of The Dead ©

By Michael Casey

Well George Michael just died and on Christmas Day, so that’ll taint Christmas forever for his family and his fans. Its 2.30am. The pain got me up so I thought I’d write a bit while I wait for the pain to go away and when I’m so exhausted that’ll I’ll fall over then I’ll go back to bed and sleep through the pain.

The pain of a death is overwhelming, I remember when my mother died 20 years ago and when my dad died 5.5 years later, though he nearly died 8 weeks after mum. So 2016 is the year of the dead, Twitter is trending Save David Attenborough as he is a National Treasure and if anything happened to him it would be unbearable. So retweet that to all your friends. I did have a try of Twitter  but its too time consuming and addictive, like going to a speak-easy. I am not on any Social Media I attract mad people like a magnet, so I am only on email and I don’t click any links, you have to write a message or you are deleted and join the year of the dead.

Part of our lives go when a celebrity goes, we were snogging our girl or boyfriend or both to the music of our favourite musician. So when that person dies we remember whether we scored a home run or got to 2^nd base, while listening to Elvis or George Michael or even John Denver. The dead person is forever sat on the back of the settee looking down at the action or lack of it, like Beetlejuice.  

You go for a drive and you are playing your favourite songs as you drive along, you are showing off and you crash the car, even if you don’t kill your girlfriend that moment is forever frozen in time with the music that was playing as you drove dangerously. So when the singer finishes singing his songs forever  you remember back to the day that you had your crash. The night my mother died Celine Dion was singing a song on the radio so that has become our family song, you lifted me up, which was so true of our mum.

If you like the Celebrity Death magnifies our own emotions, what was happening to us is  reinforced because somebody was singing this or that. Its Music above all else which has such power to overwhelm us and to remind us of this and that, as they say Music really is the soundtrack of our lives. So when George Michael dies it can be an overwhelming situation for us, we have stolen and borrowed the Love from George’s family and used it as the glue that holds our own family together, that is why they’ll be tears in the morning when everybody gets up from their Christmas Day night slumbers.But George is too young to die we’ll all say and we’ll put Spotify on and listen to the tracks of our tears and remember our younger years, while George Michael sings.

So what more can I add now that the countdown to 2017 has begun, say your prayers  because one day you will not wake up, you will have joined a list and become just a memory. Use your time to make sure you are a happy memory one which is loved and mourned and not scorned.