John Lennon: It Was 36 Years Ago Today

I was relatively unaffected by Elvis's death; partly because he was not of my generation and also
because it was natural/self induced. Lennon however was a huge part of my childhood induction into a culture that still brings joy daily. My grief (beyond the horror of the unnatural circumstances and the stupidity of Chapman's futile 'gesture') was that I'd lost a huge part of my living proof that 'magic' did exist in the form of flesh and blood. They say that parents give kids pets to prepare them for loss. I'd buried quite a few cats and dogs by that point. I'd always had to work up the tears previously. Sorrow always seemed a part sentient, part self-induced parade. Nothing could've prepped me for that wretched gut feeling. My grief was personal, not collective. John had mattered to me, and in my own way. I had made him mine. And he and my other 'heroes' are with me now; still shape me daily. We are all similarly effected. All of Us. You cannot overstate the importance of those early influences and the ice cold heat of that first deathly kick in the bollocks. Yet somehow that loss improves us. Adds a layer of understanding. We were gifted by his life and somehow enhanced and advanced by his passing. Hard to articulate such a primal reaction. Too easy to lose that sense with guff and gush.
Maya Angelou was more succinct:

"And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always irregularly.

Spaces fill with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. 

They existed.
We can be. 

Be and be better. 

For they existed."