About Amy

This time last week she probably put on some lipstick, hummed a song, maybe had a bite to eat. A cup of tea, a bath, a cigarette. A normal day in the life of a woman. Daddy’s Girl, a godmother, someone’s friend. A few days ago she danced around in a pair of jeans at a club in her neighborhood, clapping her hands and cheering on her protégé. Now those jeans are empty and the legs inside of them are, as we speak, being burned to ash.

She stopped breathing on Saturday, while we slept, while friends in England went to lunch, did the shopping, nursed a hangover. Just went to sleep and never woke up; the most blessed way to die, they say.

But I don't believe that, not for her, because I don't believe she was done yet. She had pieces to pick up, a life to sew back together, men to love, children to have, a mum and dad to make proud, songs to sing. She had music in her to make the world go round, but more importantly, she had a woman in the mirror to look at and love, friends to hold, a goddaughter to watch grow up and bloom.

And she’s gone. No more songs. No more cups of tea. No babies, no gray hair, no transformation into an elder stateswoman. Her clothes are empty of the frail body that filled them, her already-light weight now little but air, dust.

There are a thousand cautionary tales here; about fame, drink, addiction to drugs and bad boys, attraction to many shiny, sparkly, and very dangerous things, and those tales will be told again and again, I’m sure. But not today.

Today they took the tiny shell that once held her big, big soul, and they said prayers over it and they burned it. Her eyes are gone; her impossible hair, her tattoos, her tiny feet, her fingernails. Her voice is gone, her vision, the way she walked. We have only the holes in our hearts where her songs or her friendship once comforted us. We mourn for the words we’ll never get to hear, her company that we’ll never get to keep.

There can be no romance in her death; no glamor or redemption. Only the mourning for what has been lost, a rejection of the trite concept of closure, because this wound will never close – she was supposed to be here, but she isn’t. Something’s wrong, out of order.

The only thing to do is keep what we knew of her – her words, her songs, and both her sweetness and monstrousness – honest, because it seems she was always that, unfailingly. She made few apologies and wore few masks, walked through the world emotionally naked. She was both afraid and fearless. Now she is part of the story, the song, the history of us, our beauty and ugliness. Our Amy.