blackholesunshower

Black hole sun
Won’t you come
And wash away the rain….

Today I awoke with Chris on my mind; nothing different than any other day, except that today he is dead. Gone. It’s a gut wrenching feeling. Today, which is day four of this knowledge, it stings a little less, though my emotions are still going up and down the sliding scale.

 “How would you rate your pain today, from a 1 to a 10 being the highest?” the doctor inside my head asks me. Maybe a 9. Yesterday I was at an 11, so that’s better, right?

Here’s a bit of how Thursday, May 18th unfolded:

Thursday morning… step downstairs.

Check the phone… on it a simple message.

“You ok buddy?” It says.

Another message….

“I heard about Chris Cornell. Had he been sick?”

It’s then that I know. Chris…. something happened to Chris. SOMETHING HAPPENED TO CHRIS. SOMETHING HAPPENED TO CHRIS!

I have pictured this day, knowing I would not be able to function properly. That he has died. He is no longer physically here.

I scream. Again.

I fall to the floor. Again.

Yes, it is happening again. First my dad (two months ago), now Chris. Just a week before I was due to see him perform twice, Chris Cornell is dead at the age of 52, shortly after Soundgarden played Detroit.

My heart is heavy. My eyes are burning. There is indeed a burden in my hand. Chris had a burden that apparently not many people knew about. His musical talents proved more of a burden than he could bear. His light is extinguished from the world.

Black Hole Sun….won’t you come….? And wash away the rain.

I lost my love today. Won’t you cry for me?

Yes, I will cry. I have cried. I will cry again some more.

Chris Cornell.

What happened to you that you would HANG yourself in a hotel room? What would cause you to do such mortal harm to your beautiful soul? How could you erase yourself and DISAPPEAR; the very thing you warned us would happen???

Deep breaths. Don’t think of how it happened or why.

Chris Cornell, my rock God WAS in fact, human and now human no more.

I called into work in a haze, breaths heavy, panting my way through the message that I simply could not move. Could not bear the thought of going through the duties of this day. But I had already missed so much work after the death of my father. I mustered up the strength to somehow drive through the fog.

The rest of the day is a blur, but the lowlights include having a breakdown and having to leave early. Thankfully, a dear friend who lives nearby and is also a HUGE Chris fan came to sit with me and share my pain.

Thus followed three days of bitter, bitter pain, many many many tears. Lots of writing, creating, thinking, insomnia (which I NEVER EVER have). Oh boy. Heartbreaking.

Today is day four and the dark pall is starting to lift. Acceptance has sunk in. I can now think of Chris past tense, but I hate it. I will always hate it. Twenty years from now, my kids will look at me in awe, asking “Mom, you really saw Chris Cornell live? You really met him!?” Yes I did. Yes I did.

I take solace in the fact that I never took his life for granted.  Ok, well maybe I did a bit, but not recently, especially after Higher Truth came out. But none of that matters now. He’s gone, never to return. Our sweet King Animal, Grunge God.

God, let him be at peace in the Superunknown.